Discouragement: A Germ of Its Own

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble, as published in "However Long and Hard the Road." (p4)

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement, discouragement has a germ of its own...as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint."

Elder Holland quotes this famous line from F. Scott Fitzgerald on P.2 and again on P.3, in his talk For Times of Trouble.  He then goes on to expound that discouragement is a nasty, growing, corrosive disease, one that "...takes an increasingly severe toll on our spirit, for it erodes the deepest religious commitments we can make - those of faith, hope, and charity."

I loved Elder Holland's point that when we allow ourselves to become discouraged, we turn our focus inward, and become increasingly self-absorbed. This self-centered focus inhibits our capacity to love and care for others, and decreases our desire to serve others, as well as our ability to love ourselves and our spouses. One of the greatest struggles I hear myself and other women who are dealing with infertility describe is the tendency to overwhelming discouragement. The bone-deep weariness that comes with  yet another doctor's office, yet another procedure, yet another time of waiting. As I read this talk, it was a gentle message from Heavenly Father that even in the midst of undeniable sorrow, discouragement did not necessarily need to follow. And rather than luxuriating in my 'right' to be discouraged, because, well, who wouldn't be, this sucks----instead I needed to go forward with faith, and battle against this 'germ' of discouragement, lest it infect my entire being.

In this talk Elder Holland shares the story of a 67 year old Thomas Edison, who had yet to make any of the inventions for which he is now famous. (And isn't that an lesson on 'retirement!'). Anyway, there was a huge warehouse fire that burned down everything he had, required the fire companies from 8 different towns to control the blaze. Edison's reaction? First, he called his daughter and asked her "Where's your mother? Tell her to go get her friends. They'll never see another fire like this as long as they live."  Just before dawn the next morning he announced plans to re-build, standing in the ashes of everything he had once had.

The moral of the story? Times of trouble can and will come to everyone, but discouragement is not the inevitable companion of trouble. It stems from an entirely different source. Trouble is impossible to avoid, but to allow or disallow discouragement is a choice we make. And when we truly understand this principle, when facing these 'times of trouble' we are empowered to make a different choice than discouragement, and/or depression. We can choose to be happy, to see the good, to recognize that at the very least the fire was impressive. I remember one week in our marriage where an astonishing number of things had gone wrong...when yet another thing exploded in our faces, Richard and I looked at each other and just started laughing, enjoying the disaster, the unlikely coinciding of all of these events in such a short time frame.  Today I don't remember the details of all the things that went wrong, I just remember the laughter. There is a lesson in that, as well, I think.