Character of God

Mortality is a high-adventure, wilderness experience--a time of testing and proving. It is not the promised land. As we make our way through that wilderness as husbands and wives, or as families, we can all be assured we will encounter many trials and afflictions--some of them the result of family life itself.

Comprehending the character of God enables us to see those experiences differently. Our thoughts and conversations focus more upon the fertile parts of the wilderness than they do upon the wilderness; more upon the good in our partners and in our marriage than the bad; more upon the many ways in which we have been highly favored of the Lord than upon the many afflictions we have had to suffer—either with each other or perhaps because of one another.

We see blessings and miracles, and one manifestation after another of the goodness, the mercy, and the love of God. Stirred by the pleasant remembrances of the past, we look forward to the future with faith and hope and optimism. We believe the best is yet to come, not that it has already come to pass.