Years ago on vacation, our family took a day excursion to Cape Cod. Essentially a giant sand bar jutting into the ocean, I was amazed to learn that the coastline of Cape Cod sees changes between 3 and 15 feet each year as the winds and ocean beat against the shore, at times pulling the sand away and at other times depositing it. We live in a turbulent world where time honored traditions are shifting quickly, are left behind and the future is full of complexity and concern. No one is immune to the shifting sands and it can be hard to look to the future with optimism.
As my husband and I approached our wedding day, I was both thrilled and fearful about the upcoming future. We received a great deal of well meant advice about the difficulties and joys that lay ahead and one evening my sweetheart found me distraught and overwhelmed by the anticipation of hardship ahead. I wasn’t sure I was cut out for it. His response came from the words of Robert Browning, “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”
Looking back, I can see that all of the people who gave advice were right. We have shared some difficult days, weeks, months and years. Remarkably, it is those same days, weeks, months and years that have shaped us, taught us, and allowed us to receive our greatest joys. Joy does not come independent of struggle. The two are mingled together and necessary for our growth and for our ultimate destiny of knowing as He knows, seeing as He sees, loving as He loves and enjoying as He enjoys. Though we experience sorrow, the cure for every sorrow is already in place. Jesus Christ is the cure.
“The Lord… will strengthen you. He will bless you with peace, even amidst chaos….If you will make and keep covenants to follow Jesus Christ, you will find that the painful moments of your life are temporary. Your afflictions will be “swallowed up in the joy of Christ.”…The best is yet to come…because the Savior is coming again! The best is yet to come because the Lord is hastening His work. The best is yet to come as we fully turn our hearts and our lives to Jesus Christ.” (President Russell M. Nelson, October 2024)
Keep walking, press forward, the best is yet to come.