OK, I can see that. But I know what God's plan is for me (and for all of us, really). He wants us all to be HAPPY. And to know what happiness is, we have to pass through pain and sorrow sometimes. How would we know what happiness is without its opposite? We couldn't. That's why Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden - to pass through sorrow so they might know JOY!
God does NOT plan each step along the path for us. He gives us tests and challenges, and guess what - LIFE HAPPENS. Other people touch our lives for good and bad (our spouses for instance) and their level of obedience to God's commandments may not be in line with ours. At times our level of obedience is not in line and WE make mistakes. Fortunately, that's why we received the gift of the Atonement from Him as he gave his Only Begotten Son - to be forgiven and have His mercy take the place of justice.
So no, we don't know exactly how our lives will go, but we do know what God wants us to do. Ultimately our level of happiness is dependent on our level of obedience to his commandments, no matter how crappy things might be going at a particular juncture of our lives.
The exercising of our faith to TRUST in God that things will be good again after the hard times we're all going through right now is the wonderful light at the end of the tunnel that is guaranteed to be there IF WE ARE FAITHFUL.
We can talk ourselves into defeat or we can talk ourselves into victory - we are creatures of our thinking.
3/31/07 - Hit with a brick, leaving the dent there...
