Pressing Forward

I listen to conference talks on my walk to and from school.  I love it.  This is a great time to listen to the words of the prophets and other church leaders and it strengthens my resolve to press forward.  Today I listened to President Russel M. Nelsons talk from the last conference titled A Plea to My Sisters.  In this talk he shares the of operating on a little girl that was gravely ill from congenital heart disease.  She died.  He later operated on another daughter from that family also born with a malformed heart.  This child also died.  President Nelson talks about this heartbreaking loss undoing him.  He talks about going home, throwing himself on the floor and crying all night.  He was done and determined to never perform another heart operation.  He talks about his sweet wife being by his side all night and then asking if he was done crying.  She then told him to get up and go back to work that he needed to learn more.  She told him if he quit others would have to painfully learn what he already knew.  He went back to work and later performed an operation on President Spencer W. Kimball that saved his life.  This is a wonderful story and sheds light on the fact that each of us, no matter who we are, where we serve or what we do, each of us goes through times of heartache and disappointment, times of trial and of sadness when we may not want to carry on. In our times of need the Lord does not leave us comfortless and he expects us to press forward. As we exercise faith in him and press forward we will find strength to carry the load.  In another conference address Elder Bednar taught us that is is the load that helps us to learn, to grow, to move forward.  Well, life can certainly be a challenge and there are days when we may not want to keep going but we need to.  We need to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ and with a love of God and of all men.