Life Lessons Equal Future Blessings

There are some years in our lives that we would not want to live again.  But even these years will pass away, and the lessons learned will be a future blessing.  —Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I would not want to relive my teenage years.  Actually, I’m not sure I would want to relive my early twenties either.  I made so many mistakes during those years, and I’ve paid dearly.  On the other hand, I did learn lessons that have served me well my entire life.  My grandfather used to say, “Even a jackass never bumps his head more than once.”  In other words, learn the tough lessons, don’t repeat them, and move on.

During my teen years, I learned that not everyone is worthy of my trust.  That’s a difficult lesson to learn.  We can (and should) be nice to everyone we meet.  That doesn’t mean that we should always trust people, or that we need to throw ourselves down and let others walk all over us.  Kindness and charity don’t have the same meanings as naivety and foolishness.  It is wonderful to embrace others as our friends, but trust is earned, and is a two-way street.  I made some mistakes along the way, and the lessons learned helped me to form better, long-lasting friendships that were two-sided instead of lopsided.

My early twenties taught me that infatuation and love are entirely two different things.  I also learned that with love comes great responsibility.  There is one year of my early twenties that is a total embarrassment to me.  If there was any way I could get a “redo”, I’d jump at the chance, but life doesn’t work that way.  We repent, pick up the pieces, and go forward.  The sad thing about repentance is that even if you sincerely want to, sometimes it is impossible to remove the hurt you cause others.  Have you ever felt like you were trying to stop a gushing faucet with a Band-aid?  No matter where you place it, the water just keeps shooting out.  Sometimes you hurt people with gushing wounds, and Band-aids just aren’t enough to stop the bleeding.  So you do your best to make things as right as you can, then at some point you just have to move on.  The key is to learn from your mistakes and not repeat them.

The great thing about lessons learned is that they stay with you forever and make you a better person.  As long as you don’t repeat the same mistakes, those lessons really do bless your life.  The blessings of my teenage mistakes are lifelong friends—people I can trust, rely on, have fun with, confide in, and love.  My early twenties produced the great blessing of a husband and children who love me and stand by me through thick and thin.  Had I not learned the tough lessons of my twenties, I doubt I would ever have had a chance with my husband.

As a wife and mother, I’ve had some rough years too.  There are certainly moments I would like to have back to get them right.  I would like to have been a little more patient and a little less stressed.  Maybe I could have said something different to a child at a crucial moment that would have made a difference.  Maybe I would have done something different in a particular situation that might have swayed a child into making a better choice.  There were lots of times I wish I would have held my temper—and a few times I wish I had been more direct.  There were lessons learned along the way, though, that helped me when similar situations presented themselves.

Every day that we live brings us closer to the person we want to become, provided we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin anew the next day.  That, in itself, is a miracle.  It is a gift from God.  We begin each day and remake ourselves into something better using the lessons of the past.  That’s some plan He gave us, isn’t it?  There’s no need for me to settle on the teenage me, or the early twenty me.  I can take 60 years of life lessons and become a better me—a me of whom I can be proud.

Have I learned everything in 60 years?  I wish I could say yes, but the answer is that I’m still struggling every single day to become the kind of person I aspire to become.  Life is all about learning, and I suppose that when God thinks I’ve learned what I am supposed to learn, He will take me home.  The odd thing is that the lessons are becoming less temporal and more spiritual as time marches.  Instead of struggling to keep from screaming at someone when I’m angry; I’m trying to remember whatever I read in the scriptures earlier in the day that will keep my mind on happier things.  That is the ultimate blessing.

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