Corners and Currants

A few months ago I had a pretty negative attitude about the way my life was going due to some disappointments and hurts. Well... no. Redact. Not due to them... but due to my reaction to them. I wasn't acting but was allowing myself to be acted upon, so to speak. But over these last several months and particularly the last several weeks, I have felt this sense of liberation and happiness. I feel like something great is happening in my life and that blessings are right around the corner. I see it as a huge miracle that Heavenly Father protects me from so much and sees me so perfectly that He can guide me—albeit at times kicking and screaming— down paths that I wouldn't go down on my own. Then we turn a corner and I see what He's guiding me towards and I stop with my tantrum and say "Ohhh... okay." Just takes faith. And hope. And trust.


Sometimes when I feel overlooked, I realize after some time, some walking, and a few corners that it isn't the case at all. I'm not overlooked, I'm looked over. I'm not being passed up... I'm being pushed up. And thank goodness there is a God above who knows what's best for me, especially when I don't. If my life was left in my clumsy hands, I would've dropped or broken or lost it by now. Instead I am guided and upheld by righteous and omnipotent hands. I'm so glad that in times of intensity and growth, the Lord also instructs and enlightens. I read this recently in a book and loved it. 

I was living up in Canada. I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and went after it, and I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

I wanted to tell you that oft-repeated story because there are many of you who are going to have some very difficult experiences: disappointment, heartbreak, bereavement, defeat. You are going to be tested and tried to prove what you are made of. I just want you to know that if you don’t get what you think you ought to get, remember, “God is the gardener here. He knows what he wants you to be.” Submit yourselves to his will. Be worthy of his blessings, and you will get his blessings.

Elder Hugh B. Brown

Bring on the blessings.