"Sometimes the Seagulls Don't Come!"

As we were walking into Gospel Doctrine class yesterday, I noticed the saying above on the chalkboard. It came from our teacher, who has the most interesting ways of saying things.

It was fitting then that we were talking about hardships, in particular the handcart companies. Not much to do with seagulls, which was fine. At the end of class, he brought up the miracle of the seagulls, but only to say that sometimes the seagulls don't come. He told a few stories including one about some latter day women who had gotten up in Sacrament meeting to tell beautiful stories of fasting, prayer, and receiving Priesthood blessings to cure their husbands of cancer and the miraculous blessing that was. While these sisters were telling their stories, there was one sister sitting on the bench. As the others, she too had fasted, prayed, and received Priesthood blessings, but unlike the others, her husband had died from his cancer. Sometimes the seagulls don't come.

I loved the saying from the moment I read it. I thought over my own life and the trials I've been through. Sometimes things don't work out the way I thought they would or hoped they would. I've come to realize that sometimes it doesn't have anything to do with righteousness or faith, or a lack thereof to obtain the desired blessing. Bad things happen to even those who have the greatest faith. I think the true test in those circumstances is not do we have enough faith to be healed or saved from that trial, but rather will our faith last even when there is no end in sight? Will we persevere through the hard times even when we've been praying for relief from the beginning and we haven't yet received an answer? Do we have enough faith in the Lord and His plan to give Him our will? For our will, as Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, is the one true gift that we can give Heavenly Father.

Sometimes, the seagulls don't come, and I find that it is those times that I gain the greatest strength. It is these moments that can either make us, or break us.