Why am I like this?

Lately I've been thinking about weaknesses.  Here are a few things I've discovered:

It is important that we see our weaknesses, and it is even helpful that we see where they came from.

• Some of our weaknesses are inherited.  This includes genetic predispositions as well as behavioral traits of our parents and others in the home we grew up in.  
• Some are bi-products of our strengths.  
• My friend Marla Staffanson taught me that every strength has its weakness. She has an amazing ability to articulate precisely what she wants to get across.  That is a huge strength, and she uses it to inspire and to lift those around her everywhere she goes.  However, that strength can also be a vice if it is used to verbalize thoughts which (however accurate and spot-on) might be not be accepted humbly and with wisdom.  Our choice, she would always say, must be to use those talents as strengths, not as weaknesses.    
• Some are self-created by our choices or simply human error. 
• And some are there simply to keep us humble and keep us close to God.  

This morning I read of the inspiring story of Gaël Yonnet. I'll share this excerpt: 

"At the age of 31, while he was in his final year of medical school, he participated in a snowboarding competition at Snowbird, a Utah ski resort. It turned out to be tragic for him. He missed his second jump and crashed from a height of 40 feet onto the icy snow below. When he regained consciousness, he realized that he had lost feeling in his lower limbs. After four years of medical studies, Gaël understood what pain in his stomach and numbness under his belly button meant. He was indeed paralyzed.

"Gaël said that on the day following his accident, he awoke with feelings of intense distress. He thought to himself, “There are many simple things in life, such as going to the bathroom, that I can no longer do on my own. If that is how I am going to have to live, maybe it’s better for me to die.”

"Shortly thereafter he met another patient at the hospital who was a quadriplegic. That patient confided in him, 'I would so much like to have arms like yours.' This was a key moment for Gaël. If someone could be envious of what he had, he should be grateful to still have it!

"Gaël testifies:

We all want something more. I believe that is human nature. But I discovered that the key to happiness is to accept ourselves as we are, to be content and to live with what we have. I miss my legs terribly. But, in the end, I don’t have any other choice but to move forward and try to be happy without them.

"During the time he was at the hospital, he learned more about pain and about caring for patients than he could have learned in several years of medical school. Gaël decided to specialize in rehabilitative medicine. Today he is a renowned doctor who works with patients suffering from spinal injuries, amputations, strokes and seizures, and multiple sclerosis. His patients praise his empathy and his ability to understand their problems. For Gaël, the acceptance of his limitations was the starting point for his own exceptional progress." (Gérald Caussé, "When I Am Weak," spring 2014 BYU Magazine.)

Here's the hard reality: however our weaknesses came to us, they are ours now.  No amount of blaming them on those who caused them, avoiding them, or wishing them away will make them disappear.   For me, that brings out the tandem erroneous thought that I can somehow wash away my imperfections by simply trying to be perfect.  (That is a whole different discussion, which I plan on posting about later.)  Not only is that exhausting and unreasonable, but it is quite unhelpful in the process of coming to terms with the weaknesses that are part of us.  

That can be really hard to come to terms with.  

Once we see an imperfection and claim it as ours, that is where the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ comes in.  It allows us to change and overcome our very natures.  And it gives us the strength and ability to persist in doing that which will bless us and those around us, however difficult it might be in the moment.  Every wrong can be righted through  the Atonement.  Every injustice and inequity can be overcome through the Atonement.  

Here was a thought from the same article: "God is not the God of superheroes, nor of people without weaknesses.  Such beings do not exist!  God helps people like you and me, those who recognize their limits and the weakness of their condition and seek His help and guidance."

I love this quote from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin: "We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today.  God sees us in terms of forever."