The Get-Over-It Attitude

Last weekend I had this opportunity to attend conference at Berkeley, California. The conference is focused on sharing research on Mormonism in Asia. Honestly I had a great time there. I got the chance to meet with many great people and scholars. It was a great event for ideas exchange. All researches and papers were great and can't list them all here. However there's a little incident happened that I really wanted to share my thoughts on that.

During the Q&A session of the panel that I was in, a lady raised her hand, stood up and shared her comments right after and other lady in the crowd asked her question. I can't record the exact wordings of what she had said, but simply what she was trying to say was something like these, "we know all the answers to the issues and questions you all mentioned in your research. I am grateful that I know there are answers to these questions." She then stood up and walked out the room. I hope I didn't get it wrong but to me, what she meant was "you all just need get over it, for whatever you guys are talking about. There're answers in the gospel!" I agree that there are answers in the gospel that can solve our problems, however I don't believe that we can just simply say "get over it" and let that be the solution to any questions.

On the same day my friend shared with me that she struggled a lot in her ward, simply because people are having this get-over-it attitude. She said one time the teacher taught about forgiveness and a sister shared her struggle and not able to forgive someone at this stage of her life. Another sister just spoke up and said" oh! Just get over it!" The sister was disappointed, not that she couldn't forgive that person, but it definitely takes time to be able to forgive someone. In that situation, she is being categorized as the stubborn-not-forgiving person.

It seems like among members we seek to be result-orientated. We rejoice in hearing others successful story on overcoming challenges and struggles in life rather than listening to how they walked through the painful path. When we share our experiences, we tend to skip describing the process but focus on glorifying the outcome and what a great person we have become. Needless to say how we look down and step our feet onto those who are struggling because we accuse them being stubborn and not having enough faith that all things will eventually work out.

No one on this earth have the ability to fully comprehend what other person are going through in their lives. Nor should we tempt to believe that we have this ability and go around to mock those who are struggling, belittling them as the little-faith. Even though we seem to know that we can find most of the answers in life in the gospel, but God wants us to experience, ask question and seek help. He doesn't want us to just know the answer and get over it. We are all different. We all have our own challenges and struggles in life. Be a good listener to those who suffer. Let him/her share what they have been going through. Most importantly, we need to get rid of the get-over-it attitude. Don't pretend to be the expert in dealing with struggles and challenges because only the Lord is able to guide us through.

G.K.