The Backdoor Curveball...

We are currently going through an unexpected family event. Katie's grandfather experienced a very serious stroke earlier this week and is not expected to make it. I have now received two phone calls from Katie with this type of news. The first one was in 1998 when her grandmother unexpectedly passed away, and then on Monday when she called me about the news of her Grandpa. We love you Grandpa and, while it hurts to think we will be seperated for a season, we know you are anxious to see Grandma again and you have work waiting for you. Your example and legacy has left a clear path for your posterity to follow and we will honor you by staying true to the things you taught us.

My love and admiration for my wife is something for which words are insufficient, and watching how she handles these moments makes those feelings even deeper. How I got this lucky, I will never know...aside from being extremely good looking, I don't bring much else into our relationship. Grandpa, you will never have to worry about your granddaughter deviating from the straight and narrow, I just hope we can keep up with her.

As I have been thinking about this unexpected event in our lives, my mind has been marinating on the role of challenges and trials in our lives and their refining and humbling role in our time here on earth. So, as is now my custom, I thought I would right some of these thoughts down on this blog.

When I was learning how to play baseball, I remember a moment of truth for me was finally figuring out how to hit a curveball. That slow, bending pitch required a certain discipline to first recognize it for what it was and then react accordingly. While I wasn't successful at hitting it all the time, I hit it more than I missed it...except for the backdoor curveball. The backdoor curveball was my kryptonite, my Achilles heel. As a right-handed hitter, this pitch was thrown by a left-handed pitcher and started outside the strike zone only to break across the outside of the plate at the last minute. It seemed that no matter how prepared I thought I was, this pitch always caught me by surprise and left me feeling frustrated as I walked back to the dugout.

Sometimes, when the unexpected bumps in life come our way, we say that life is throwing us curveballs. Being a baseball fan, I like and really appreciate this analogy. I think that life's curveballs are a vital part of our probationary time here on earth and are critical to our progress. I believe we grow the most through our trials as they stretch us and pull us to win our battle with the urges of the 'natural man'. These curveballs are often the salt of life, the things that, while not always pleasant, build character, develop self-confidence, and teach us lessons through necessary experiences. Just like my experience with baseball, when we have this understanding, I think we can learn to how to handle these types of curveball trials when they are thrown at us. We understand what they are, we can recognize them when they come, and eventually, we are able to successfully go through them more than we let them beat us.

But then...one of those freaking backdoor curveballs of life comes our way.

Sometimes they come out of the blue; sometimes they sneak up on us, and sometimes they come as a result of the accumulation of several smaller of life's curveballs we may have missed. Regardless of the reason, when we are in life's batter's box and one of these backdoor curveballs comes our way, it seems like no matter how prepared we are, it catches us completely unaware as it is aimed directly at where we are the weakest. These are the monster trials of faith that attack our testimony, that weaken our resolve, whose shockwaves resonate in all areas of our live and whose tremors can be felt by those around us. They instantly make a sunny day cloudy, a positive outlook turn pessimistic, and erode self-confidence.

For each of us, these backdoor curveballs are different as each of us have unique weaknesses. Unfortunately our older brother, Satan, knows us well. He understands what our weaknesses are and just how to throw it at us to try to bring us down. Overcoming these trials can take days, weeks, months, or even years. Personally, I believe that we all have a certain number of backdoor curveballs we will face in our life, and that we agreed to stand in the batter's box and face them before we came to this earth. We knew that we would have to face them and overcome them to achieve our ultimate goal of returning home to live with Him once again.

These trails are necessary, they expose our areas of greatest weakness with the ultimate goal of "making weak things strong" for us (Ether 12:27) and to help us understand that we are our strongest when we humble ourselves enough to keep our will in line with the Father's...how quickly we tend to forget that his goal for us, his entire purpose for us, is to bring to pass our eternal progress (Moses 1:39).

From my own experience with these backdoor curveballs of life, I believe it is critical to always have this eternal perspective if we hope to handle this type of trial. We have to understand why these types of things happen and have the faith to believe that our job isn't:

• to question why and demand an answer of Him
• to curse god and question His plan for us
• to feel like a victim
• to feel sorry for ourselves
• to spread misery to others
• to distance ourselves from the things we have always known to be right
• to use it to leverage sympathy and pity from the world
• to hide and hope it all goes away

In fact, when we do this, we are fulfilling the aims of the 'pitcher' who throws those curveballs at us. He wants us to cower, to retreat, to complain, to sour ourselves and to breed distrust in our hearts. If he can do any of these things, he knows he can get at our testimony, at our faith, and if he can get at that, he can erode our understanding of our relationship with our Father in Heaven, of our reason for being here and our ultimate goal. If he can do this, he can destroy your family, your relationship, and bring misery to you on all fronts. It doesn't happen all at once, but if you let him get his foot in the door and keep it there...this will ultimately be what happens.

When we catch ourselves in the throws of one of these trials, keep in mind why we go through them here, remember that you knew you would be going through it here before you got here, and have faith that if you stay strong in your testimony and weather the storm, in the end it will all be for your gain. When the skies get dark in these moments, remember our Savior who suffered all and take comfort in the fact that he knows you and has been through what you are feeling. He has promised you that if you stay true to what you know to be right, he will always provide a way for you to come through it (1 Nephi 3:7).

Does this make these backdoor curveballs any easier to handle? Not really, but it should bring a measure of comfort as you understand that there is a purpose, a reason for it and that in the end, it is for your good.

Thanks for reading...I know it was a lot. Grandpa, we will miss you, tell Grandma that we love her and remember that we will always love and honor you.