Partaking of the bitter cup without becoming bitter

That is probably one of my favorite sayings from Elder Neal A. Maxwell. He quotes that so often in his talks. But in dealing with coping and crisis that is truly how it is. We have to learn to partake of the bitterness without becoming bitter for that is how Christ did it.

It's how we respond to tragedy that builds or destroys our character. In our class we learned about the ABC model where A is the actual event, B is the behavioral response, and C is the cognition or how the family defines the stress depending on how they responded to it. There are too many examples to share but since my sister Meredith is one of the few that reads this I will share an example of how their family dealt with a stressful situation (don't you feel proud Mere that you're on my blog :). They got to Arizona not too long ago when their car got stolen and the people who stole it tried to set it on fire. When Meredith told her husband Bryan after he came home from a long day of medical school he said nonchalantly "well that sucks." Haha! To read more go to their blog post about it! But what a way to deal with a crisis-with humor :) It reminds me of something I saw about a town destroyed by fire and many houses were burned to the ground. On one of the lawns of the house there was a sign that said "finally-termite free."

But there are also tragedies that takes years to recover. I know that situations in our family right now that there our problems increase even when the blessings still flow. It's hard to put words how hard it has been for some of them. Sometimes we're in phases where we managed them as they come or we say that is the hardest thing our family has gone through. And some of the time we say that because of this crisis our family is better because of it and we've actually grown closer together.

One example that I overheard at work was a husband and wife had 10 children together. Three months after their last child was born, the mother passed away. The husband said "God I still believe in you but really? Do you really need her on the other side of the veil rather than on earth?" It wasn't out of anger but more of trying to understand. Years later when he related this story he looked at one of his sons as they were hometeaching and thought, "my kids would not be where they are today without that experience." To me, the mother died to save her kids in the gospel.

Of course the greatest Healer in all of this is Jesus Christ and because of His life and death He doesn't overwhelm us but helps us overcome the world. Here's a great video about it.