I've been wanting to post this for a bit!

Teachings of Wilford Woodruff

Trials and opposition give us experience and help us prepare for celestial glory.

It has no doubt been a marvel many times, in the minds of men and women, why God ever placed men and women in such a world as this, why he causes his children to pass through sorrow and affliction here in the body. The Lord has revealed something to us concerning this matter, and we have learned enough about it to know that this thing is necessary. 4

It appears plain that it is God’s purpose to suffer His Saints to be thoroughly tried and tested, so that they may prove their integrity and know the character of the foundation upon which they build. 5

While we sometimes feel and have felt in days that are past and gone, to complain because we meet with oppression, persecution, and affliction, yet I wish to say to my brethren and sisters that these things are the heritage of the Saints of God. … I have never read of the people of God in any dispensation passing through life, as the sectarian world would say, on flowery beds of ease, without opposition of any kind. … We have been called to pass through trials many times, and I do not think we should complain, because if we had no trials we should hardly feel at home in the other world in the company of the Prophets and Apostles who were sawn asunder, crucified, etc., for the word of God and testimony of Jesus Christ. 6

It is impossible … for the Saints of God to inherit a celestial kingdom without their being tried as to whether they will abide in the covenants of the Lord or not. 7

Jesus … descended below all things that he might rise above all things and comprehend all things. No man descended lower than the Savior of the world. Born in a stable, cradled in a manger, he travelled from there to the cross through suffering mingled with blood to a throne of grace; and in all his life there was nothing of an earthly nature that seemed to be worth possessing. His whole life was passed in poverty, suffering, pain, affliction, labor, prayer, mourning and sorrow until he gave up the ghost on the cross. Still he was God’s firstborn son and the Redeemer of the world. The question might be asked why the Lord suffered his Son to come here and to live and die as he did. When we get into the spirit world, and the veil is withdrawn we shall then perhaps understand the whys and wherefores of all these things.

In the dispensations and providences of God to man it seems that we are born to suffer pain, affliction, sorrows and trials; this is what God has decreed that the human family shall pass through; and if we make a right use of this probation, the experience it brings will eventually prove a great blessing to us, and when we receive immortality and eternal life, exaltation, kingdoms, thrones, principalities and powers with all the blessings of the fulness of the gospel of Christ, we shall understand and comprehend why we were called to pass through a continual warfare during the few years we spent in the flesh. 8

What is anything we can do or suffer, to be compared with the multiplicity of kingdoms, thrones, and principalities that God has revealed to us? 9

Certainly we have never passed through more than the Savior did, nor as much. But He through all His life remained true and faithful to His Father and to His calling as the Savior of the world. He prayed a great deal, and He mourned before the Lord over the sins of the world. To-day He is in our midst. He is our Advocate with the Father. [See D&C 29:5.] He is watching over us, and He will do all that He can for our salvation. 16