Insights on the Family: The Crucibles of Life

"The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave"
(The Family: A Proclamation to the World).

The hard times we go through in life are sometimes referred to as crucibles. "A crucible is a furnace-like vessel that endures intense heat that refines and transfigures raw materials into a new, stronger substance" (Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives). The text continues to help us understand that the crucible helps to get rid of impurities and unify elements so that the end result creates a new object. 

Crucible pouring molten metal into a mold,

The reason trials are called crucibles is obviously because when we go through hard times, we are being refined and being made into new people. Once we have passed through something hard we often feel like a different person, and we cannot go back and be the same person we were before. Trials alone don't make us into better people. I think it depends on how we handle the trials. If we turn ourselves over to the Lord, it is through Him that we can have the trial turn into something beautiful.

Elder Richard G. Scott said, "It is important to understand that [the Lord's] healing can mean being cured, or having your burdens eased, or even coming to realize that it is worth it to endure to the end patiently, for God needs brave sons and daughters who are willing to be polished when in His wisdom that is His will" (To Be Healed). It is through the Lord that we can have strengths in our trials, power to overcome weaknesses, and blessings of healing. He can take our burdens and trials away, but I think He often just strengthens us as we work through them. He understands that we need the good and the bad experiences of life to become the kind of person he wants us to be.

Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas), by John Scott 

President James E. Faust said long ago, "Into every life there come the painful, despairing days of adversity and buffeting. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. The thorns that prick, that stick in the flesh, that hurt, often change lives which seem robbed of significance and hope. This change comes about through a refining process which often seems cruel and hard. In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master in building lives of faith, usefulness, beauty, and strength. For some, the refiner’s fire causes a loss of belief and faith in God, but those with eternal perspective understand that such refining is part of the perfection process" (The Refiner's Fire).

Though our trials, tribulations, and afflictions are hard, it is a way for us to be perfected through the atonement of the Savior. Below is a video I put together for my husband for our anniversary a while ago. The reason I share it is because the first song is by Julie de Azevedo entitled "Masterpiece." In this song she talks about how we can become who God wants us to be as we allow the Lord to shape us.