Knowing When to Persevere and When to Change Direction | Janet G. Lee, Jan 1992

When the plan we have in mind doesn't seem to be working out, God will tell us when to persevere and when to change direction. He has a plan for us.

This devotional was given on January 14, 1992.

Read the talk here:
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/janet-g-lee/knowing-persevere-change-direction/

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https://speeches.byu.edu/collections/overcoming-adversity/

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"When my daughter Stephanie was five years old, I took her to register for kindergarten. When we arrived, she was invited to go into a classroom to “play games” with the teachers and other children. As a former elementary school teacher, I was certain the “games” were a method of testing for placement purposes.

A teacher was sitting just outside the room with a box of crayons and several sheets of blank paper, and I smiled confidently to myself from across the hall as Stephanie was asked to choose her favorite color and write her name. “She could write all the names in our family,” I thought to myself. “She is so well prepared, there isn’t anything in that room she can’t handle!” But Stephanie just stood there. The teacher repeated the instructions, and again my daughter stood still, staring blankly at the box of crayons with her knees locked and hands behind her back.

In the sweet, patient voice that teachers use when they are beginning to feel slightly impatient, the teacher asked once more, “Stephanie, choose your favorite color, dear, and write your name on this piece of paper.” I was about to come to my daughter’s aid when the teacher kindly said, “That’s okay. We will help you learn to write your name when you come to school in the fall.” With all the restraint I could muster, I watched Stephanie move into the classroom with a teacher who believed my daughter did not know how to write her name.

On the way home I tried to ask as nonchalantly as possible why she had not written her name. “I couldn’t,” she replied. “The teacher said to choose my favorite color, and there wasn’t a pink crayon in the box!”

I reflect on this incident often as I watch my children grow and observe life in general. How many times are we, as Heavenly Father’s children, immobilized because the choice we had in mind for ourselves just isn’t available to us, at least not at the time we want it?

Is progress halted when acceptance into a chosen major is denied, when enrollment in a required class is closed, when a desired job doesn’t come through, when that dream date doesn’t progress beyond friendship, or when the money hoped for isn’t there? Are we ever, for reasons that are hard to understand or beyond our control, faced with a set of circumstances that we did not have in mind for ourselves? In other words, what happens when we look in the box and the pink crayon just isn’t there? It is so easy to lock our knees, put our hands behind our back, and do nothing when things wished for and dreamed about are beyond our reach. But to do so would defy the very reason we are placed here on this earth. As hard as it sometimes is to understand, stumbling blocks are essential to our progression.

Remember what the Lord said: “If thou art called to pass through [some] tribulation . . . know . . . that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:5–7).

I have often wondered how Joseph of old must have felt as his brothers sold him into Egypt. Did he think that the good life was all over for him, that he would never again experience joy? What about Abraham and Isaac? Did they wonder why that horrible, sacrificial commandment had fallen to them? How did Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah feel as they bore the stigma of being barren, when in those days it was interpreted as a sign of God’s displeasure? How did Lehi and Sariah feel as they fled from their home and friends in Jerusalem to live in the wilderness? And in this dispensation, would Hyrum and Joseph ever have chosen the difficulties they faced?

In each of these cases, as we observe the lives of men and women in scripture, it is easy to see how people can triumph over adversity. But in our own everyday lives it is often difficult to see beyond our own frustrations, to remain focused, to see the end from the beginning."
–Janet G. Lee

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