I remember three distinct times since joining the Church when I felt especially stressed, and mad at the world.  I don’t know that anything I was doing, or not doing, caused those episodes.  I suppose that I was as worthy during the times that led up to those events as I was at any other time.  I know that I was praying.  I may or may not have been studying my scriptures daily.  I was attending church, and serving in my callings as diligently as I knew how.  But for whatever reason things built up inside me until I felt like I could explode.

Once was a couple of months after our fourth child arrived.  The responsibilities of farm and family combined to make me feel overwhelmed.  There was more work to do than I could accomplish, and I was the father of four tiny children, none of whom could care for themselves.  Our oldest turned five years old eleven days after number four arrived.

The things that brought me out of my funk were the gentle attentions of my sweet wife—and time.  It didn’t take long.  I had probably spent several days building my bitter feelings, but I remember only one really bad day.  That was the only day in my church life when I went to bed without praying.  I was too mad to do it.  I wasn’t mad about any one person or situation—I was just mad at the world.  That’s a terrible attitude and position to be in.  My sweet Marjorie could see what was inside me, loved me in spite of myself, and wiped away all my sour feelings.  I really don’t know what she did, but she was patient and gentle, and my memory is that my problems dissolved overnight.

A line in Marjorie’s patriarchal blessing told her that she would be blessed with a righteous companion who would sustain and encourage her in her labors and who would need her help.  I constantly marvel about that insightful line.  It was put in her patriarchal blessing for me.

Also seemingly overnight my two oldest children matured enough to be entertaining to their younger siblings.  It seemed like suddenly my children didn’t need the constant attention that each had demanded.  They began helping and entertaining each other, and parenthood was never again as hard.

I learned two things from that experience.  One is that a loving wife is more of a necessity to a man than is eating or sleeping.  Two is that time heals everything if one is patient and just hangs on.  We all have episodes in our lives when all we can do is pray, grit our teeth, and hold on.  Tell yourself that this will pass, and remember that we’re promised that we’ll be given no more than we can bear.  (1 Cor. 10:13).

Christ endured Gethsemane.  Gethsemane passed.  So will our petty problems.

I had another tough period when my fifth child arrived.  It was the first week of March.  The cows were all calving.  It was cold.  Potato trucks needed loading.  My wife was in the hospital, and I had the care of the children.  A goat that we’d been given presented me with two new, cold kids that needed warming up.  I heard one of my little children say to another, “Let’s go over to the barn and get away from grouchy old Daddy.”

Again, time, and the return of my wife, leveled out my world.

The third episode occurred when I was a bishop.  My older children had grown to the point of being big helps to me on the farm.  I reasoned that they could do a lot of the farm work, and I could take a job in town and bring in some extra income.  I did that for two years.  I was the bishop, I was the father of eight, I worked a job in town, and I was still working as hard on the farm as I ever did.

Life became very unpleasant.  I cringed whenever the phone rang, and inwardly said, “Please don’t let it be for me.”

It was always for me.  I had no idea what to do to make life better, so I took a day off from work, and went to the temple seeking answers.

I went through an endowment session, and then sat in the Celestial Room and prayed.

Nothing happened.

I went through a second endowment session, and again sat in the Celestial Room and prayed.  This time a thought went through my head.  It was, “It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.”  (Mos. 4:27).

As soon as I thought that, I knew the answer to my dilemma.  I was trying to do too much.  I needed to quit my job in town.  My course was as clear as it could be.

I went through a third endowment session as my way of saying thanks, left the temple with a smile on my face, went home, and quit my job.  Life became sweet again.

I learned three things from that experience.  One, is that you can try to do too much.  Two, is that when you really need answers, you go to the temple expecting to receive revelation.  Three, is that the revelation doesn’t come on the first endowment session.

John A. Widtsoe wrote, “I believe that the busy person on the farm, in the shop, in the office, or in the household, who has his worries and troubles, can solve his problems better and more quickly in the house of the Lord than anywhere else.  If he will…[do] the temple work for himself and for his dead, he will confer a mighty blessing upon those who have gone before, and…a blessing will come to him, for at the most unexpected moments, in or out of the temple will come to him, as a revelation, the solution of the problems that vex his life.  That is the gift that comes to those who enter the temple properly.”  (Quoted in The Ensign, November 1990, pg. 61, by David B. Haight in General Conference).

Elder Widtsoe had this concept demonstrated in his own life.  He said, “For several years, under a Federal grant with my staff of workers we had gathered thousands of data in the field of soil moisture; but I could not extract any general law running through them.  I gave up at last.  My wife and I went to the temple that day to forget the failure.  In the third endowment room, out of the unseen, came the solution, which has long since gone into print.”  (Quoted in The Ensign, May 1981, pg. 25, by Loren C. Dunn in General Conference).

Stresses will come in all of our lives.  Usually we manage them well, but occasionally they build to the point where we think they will break us.  When we feel that way we need to check our worthiness, draw close to our spouse, go to the temple, and just hang on.  The time will pass.  The problem will melt away just like all our previous problems did.  We must be prayerful.

Elder Boyd K. Packer said, “You will never be disappointed by the Almighty.  He will work with you…

“The Lord will go before you.  I do not hesitate to promise that.  You will have the struggles that you ought to have.  They are typical of what is going on.  And in this wicked world, you will find your way.”  (Boyd K. Packer 2012 Seminar for New Mission Presidents, as quoted in Church News, 8 July 2012, pg. 4.