Faith in the Future

Last night I read Elder Hollands's article in this January Ensign entitled, "The Best is Yet to Be."
I really liked this paragraph:
"As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. "

I have been guilty of yearning too much for the past. I have such fond memories of Indiana and the friends I made there that sometimes I just want to go back to that time. It was easy; it was fun. Life seems to have gotten much more complicated and hard since we left Purdue. In some ways I feel like I had a better emotional support system there with all my dear girlfriends than I have here in Salt Lake. At times I feel that things will never get any easier and we're just going to have so many challenges living in China.

I can see now that looking wistfully back at the past has hindered my faith in the future. I know we will have challenges that other do not have, but they have trials that I cannot comprehend. I feel that the last few months have been a refiners fire, making me more humble and faithful(though there is a long way to go). Would I really want to trade all that personal growth for the person I was then? Definately not! I know I was more selfish and prideful. I know I was further away from my sweet husband and from the Lord.

I still have to catch myself sometimes from wishing away the future that is before me. It is fear not faith that is taking hold when I do that. I have to remind myself of the beauty of life mixed in the the challenges and all the reasons I have to have faith and hope in our family's future.