From Deseret News archives:
Tests are gifts from God
But growth comes from overcoming and dealing with trials and opposition, said one of the speakers at the 2009 BYU Campus Education Week.
\"Tests are gifts from God,\" said Kathy Headlee Miner, founder of Mothers Without Borders. \"The questions to ask are, 'What did I learn from this' and 'How can knowing this help me?'\"
Miner related experiences from her time in Indonesia after the 40-foot waves from a 2004 tsunami wiped out 250,000 lives.
She talked about heading to the country with backpacks, faith and no predetermined plan after her sister called to say, \"We need to go help.\"
It turned out that the two sisters were asked to put together survival kits for the families left in the hills with nothing.
\"I'm a Mormon mother. We know kits,\" Miner said she told the man who asked for their help.
Two hundred 75-pound kits complete with iron kettles, tents, hygiene products and food were assembled and transported by truck over washed out roads to boats waiting in the river.
Men who had lost their entire families helped them get the heavy kits 100 yards from the trucks to the boats, Miner said, which was just one of the miracles she witnessed along the journey.
\"People from all over the world came together,\" she said. \"That was a miracle too. The geography of our problems may be different but the geography of our hearts are one and the same.\"
Miner said Satan is the author of fear but God is the author of love.
Fear, frustration, anger and depression can be cast out by love.
\"As we liberate ourselves from fear, we move into the space of love. Then God can communicate with us,\" Miner said. \"Knowing God loves us is absolutely crucial (to surviving hardships).\"
Miner said people can help each other in disasters when they rely on inspiration and hope.
\"We're all unsure but we're all uniquely qualified so get moving and put yourself where the Lord can help,\" she said. \"All hope originates and resides in Christ.\"
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com
