Perspectives on Adversity

I have a Cherokee friend who is an expert in the technology of indigenous Americans. He has spent decades learning from native artifacts and rediscovering old manufacturing methods.

One day recently I was hearing my friend tell the history of his ancestors. The Cherokee people were forcibly removed from their homeland in the southern states under the order of Andrew Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They were marched 1,000 miles on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. A generation later the Secretary of the Interior, Lucius Lamar, informed the Cherokee that the United States government’s previous promise — that they would be given the land of Oklahoma forever — was null and void. The government offered them each a plot of land and a sum of money, and they could take it or leave it. My friend’s ancestors left it, and crossed the border south into Texas.

While he described this history it reminded me of the cultural legacy of persecution in the early decades of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nearly 200 years later we still remember and repeat the names of government officials who participated in the worst of this persecution (Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri, for example, who signed the extermination order).

This is not a rare phenomenon, but is part of the storytelling of human culture. Everyone has a story of adversity. School children throughout America can name King George III of England as the oppressor in the story of the American revolution. Saxon children were probably taught to loathe William the Conqueror in the same way.

Descendants of American slaves have a deep cultural memory of oppression that will take generations to heal. Jews have thousands of years of such stories, complete with holidays to perpetuate their memories.

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The family I grew up in faced a series of economic setbacks in the 1980’s and 90’s. We moved 6 times within the span of 9 years while I was living at home. It felt like the competitive world was rigged against us.

During those years the doctrines of second-wave feminism were percolating through the public school curriculum, and all of the boys were put on notice that the world they were growing up in was going to be a different place than the world of the past. Please don’t misunderstand me; I am in favor of equal rights and opportunities for women. The message I gained from the feminist curriculum of my childhood was not that women were to be elevated (something I am in favor of), but that men were to be diminished and supplanted (which I understandably felt threatened by).¹

I also struggled with my inborn social anxiety, which at the time I did not understand. Some kids I knew were naturally social, and could not be suppressed from being popular. Why couldn’t I do that? Why was it so hard for me?

The intersection of these experiences taught me, deep in my soul, that I was not going to be allowed to succeed, however capable or worthy of success I might be. I struggled against this belief when I served as a missionary, with limited success. Getting married during my undergraduate studies and doing well in my classes gave me the boost of confidence I needed to apply for medical school. It actually surprised me when I was accepted — not because I doubted my ability, but because I thought the deck was stacked too much against me.

Like I said, we all have stories of adversity, and we all react to them differently. My wife had more childhood trauma than I did, but she naturally sees herself as the main character in a hero’s journey. I was more likely to think I was in a tragedy.

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Jesus Christ experienced adversity at every scale. His family was impoverished, and were refugees in Egypt during his early childhood. His cousin was murdered. His own home town rejected him. He experienced persecution throughout his ministry by the leaders of his people. He lived within a conquered nation that had a history of enslavement and captivity multiple times.

On top of all of that, Jesus experienced adversity on a scale so large that none of us can relate to it, but that enables him to relate to all of us:

“And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

“And he will take upon him death⁠, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

“Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me” (Alma 7:11-13).

Jesus understands your personal struggles, family problems, social conflicts, cultural and racial and religious oppression, national catastrophes, and world war. The repeated insults to the Cherokee people, and all of my social anxiety — he experienced it all.

Remember that Jesus is the God who weeps, both with us and for us.

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Life is not entirely about difficult things; it is also full of beauty and love. Adversity enables us to enjoy the good things by contrast, and what we learn from adversity is central to life’s purpose. It should not surprise us that the center of God’s plan of happiness, the one who makes the whole plan work, is the one who is most acquainted with grief.

But his goal is more than mere empathy. He wants to provide us with enabling grace, so that we can also overcome every challenge through his power.

I don’t suppose that we will one day sit in heaven vilifying Andrew Jackson, or Lilburn Boggs, or King George III. Those things will be overcome, conquered, forgiven, and forgotten. Instead we will speak of our love for one another and for God, sharing our gratitude for those who helped us through and gave us power to conquer it all.

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1. Such pessimism among boys has been increasing since the 1970’s. See here for a discussion.

Cover Art: Two Cherokee Chiefs by George Catlin (approx 1850)

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Alan B. Sanderson, MD is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is a practicing neurologist.