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Adam and Eve

I know I’ve asked this question before, but why does life hurt so much? Why does it have so many problems to overcome? At the deepest level what is the purpose of all this struggle? The following story provides a profound insight.

Adam and Eve were placed on this earth by our Heavenly Father in the Garden of Eden where everything for their comfort and ease was provided. They partook of the fruit and were driven from the garden into a lonely inhospitable world. Adam was cursed to work to provide for his family’s need from that moment forward. Eve was cursed that in pain and suffering she would bring forth children. I believe they could tell any of us the real story about painful transitions.

They must have been some of the most valiant and intelligent people who ever graced this planet because everything started with them. They had no university at which to study; no traditions to grow up with. No one provided for them. They made their own way in the world. They tilled the ground and by the sweat of their brow they survived, and prospered both temporally and spiritually.

Eve worked along side her husband. Together they began to have children. As the Lord taught them, they taught their children the ways of the Lord. And then Cain rejected the teachings of his parents and turned against the Lord. His rebellion continued until he murdered his own brother, and brought the power of Lucifer among the family. Imagine the heartache this must have caused his mother.

Adam lived and bore the challenges of mortality for more than 900 years, until he was bent with age and burden. The size of his family after that much time must have been huge.

All of this is to say, I don’t believe any of us have anything on Adam and Eve for a challenging life and yet, I have never read a more profound explanation of the purpose of life than what Mother Eve offered.

“Were it not for our transgression,” she said “we never should have had seed and never should have known good and evil and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”

The joy of experience. No one can know joy until they know misery. No one can really love sweet until they have tasted bitter. The physical body intensifies joy as an amplifier intensifies sound, hence joy is a soul experience, affecting both body and spirit. Joy comes only to those who are faithful to Christ and receive of the Holy Ghost.

I conclude to all who wonder why it hurts, “Men are that they might have joy,” and “real joy awaits each of us, on the other side of sorrow.”