HUBBLElife Episode 7. Mortality, Life our Grand Experiment

Ever feel like life is a big experiment? In my latest episode, we dive into how we’re all learning, trying, and growing—just like a grand laboratory. Let’s embrace the process, learn from our trials, and celebrate our growth. Come join me as we explore what truly works in this experiment called life!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back friends. Welcome to Hubble Life. Today we're stepping into the heart of the journey that we call mortality. We all share this journey, but we're gonna explore today why it's so much more than we realize. This we've talked before about our pre-existence, but we knew what that plan was, we accepted it, and that we were happy before we came here. And because of that, this life is not just random. It's not survival of the finished. This is something that is intentional. We talked about the Heavenly Father that God created all of this for us to have experiences on. We knew mortality would be a place where we would go and we would experience things that we could not experience any other way. We would have a physical body, which is something we had never had. We didn't know what that was like. And we would have experiences unlike those that we had ever experienced up to that point. This life was to be a laboratory, somewhere where we could go and experiment. We would try things out, we would try to figure it out, what works, what doesn't work. Neil A. Maxwell taught this. This is a time and a place for proving and testing. This is the time we get to come here, this short time in eternity called mortality. And we're gonna be proving ourselves and being tested and figuring out life. We're gonna figure out these bodies, we're gonna figure out what they do for us and how they can help us. And this happened again back in Washington, DC, as I sat looking at the Hubble movie. And there was this shift when I realized that God created all of this, not for just to exist in it, but so that we could experience it, that we could try things, that we could work on things and work on ourselves and and figure out again who we have always been. This was a place for us to become more like our Heavenly Father, to become more like God. That was the God in the making experience for me. I knew in that instant watching that movie that this mortal life, this experience here was so much more than I ever thought it would be, or that I ever understood to that point. And I'm sure that my limited mind still doesn't quite capture and understand all that this is meant to be. But I knew that we were gods in the making, and that's what as a mom I was doing was trying to help children become the best versions of themselves to remember who they have always been because one day they would be able to become a god. This life was amazing, it is amazing. This planet is amazing, and all of it was created for us, but this all this life also isn't meant to be easy, and I know all of us know that all too well. We all have hard things that are going on, um, or we've been through some really hard things, and there are probably yet more hard things that are coming in our future, but here's the thing: we don't grow in easy. God knew that this would be a place for us where we would have to learn and grow, and growth doesn't happen in easy. Growth happens right outside of your comfort zone. It happens when you least think you want it to happen. When things get really tough and hard, we're getting proved, we're being proven, we're being um forged in the fire and and becoming better and stronger for it. Because again, we grow when things are tough. It happens from making mistakes, and all of us are gonna make those here and getting up and trying again. That's what this laboratory of life is all about, it's all about figuring out what works, what doesn't work, how it works, how we can make it better, um, and trying to work on things. And it doesn't mean that things will be easy, and just because you follow Christ, that doesn't give you a pass for the easy train, right? Elder Neil A. Maxwell taught this. God is more interested in our growth than in our comfort. That's not very comforting that He He isn't interested that we're comfortable all the time. This life wasn't meant to be comfortable. We don't grow there, we don't learn there. It's meant to stretch us and to prove us and to help us become better people, to help remind us of who we've always been. So maybe all of the hard and difficult things aren't working against us. They're actually working for us to help us become who we're meant to be. We sometimes in this life in mortality, we expect constant happiness and we think that's what it should be. That we should have constant clarity, that things should be easy for us to understand all of the time, or constant ease. I don't I don't know one person that that's been their experience, but sometimes we think it should be. Jenkins Lloyd Jones said this. Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is, most of life is ordinary, most things require patience, most relationships require effort, most days are a mix of good and hard. Life is like an old-time rail journey. Delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride. It's true that so often we think life should be blissful and that if it's not, then we've somehow been robbed. But the joy is in the journey, it's not in the destination. There can be joy found as we work through difficult things. So maybe that's what part of maybe that's part of what mortality is teaching us. Not how to avoid the hard, but to how but how to see it differently. How to find meaning in the things that are difficult and how to grow through it. If we could ask ourselves those questions rather than why me, maybe we'd be somewhere different. Because maybe the goal isn't a perfect isn't a perfect life. Maybe it's a meaningful one. It's not what happens to us, but it's how we respond. It's those things that shape us when we get knocked down over and over and over again just to find that it's time to get back up. And do we do it or do we give up? How do we respond to the things that are hard? What do you do when you try something new and you don't get it right? I can tell you from experience, this has been challenging for me. I take so many times on these podcasts over and over, trying to just do it right or or get it right or get the lighting right or the sound right or whatever it is, and we just have to keep trying. This is that laboratory of life. It's like sourdough bread. I really wanted to make sourdough bread, and so I had somebody give me a start, and I was really excited, and I kept trying, but my loaves turned out like bricks, they were just hard, they they didn't turn out very well, and finally I ended up uh ended up killing the starter. Now, I think it's kind of hard to kill a starter, but I did it. It's just something I just wasn't good at. I kept trying, but I decided again that I would try again, and I think that's what life is, right? You just you keep trying, you keep working on it. If it doesn't work, maybe come back to it, do it again later. So maybe the thing is, is you're really not behind. Maybe you're not failing, and maybe you're not lost, maybe you're just right in the middle of becoming, becoming who you're meant to be, and that comes through stretching and growing. So, what does that mean for you right now? Maybe it means that the things that you're going through, the really hard and frustrating, the things that are unclear. Um maybe we shouldn't try to escape those things as quickly as possible. But maybe it's something that we can learn from. Maybe it means asking different questions. Not why is this happening to me, but maybe we ask, what is this helping me to become? What am I learning from these things? In this laboratory, that one exploded. That clearly didn't work. So in this laboratory of life, when things explode or they they go bad or it doesn't do what you expect it to do, maybe it's not about you failing, it's just about you learning more things. Because if this life really is intentional, then nothing you go through is wasted, right? Because everything you do will work together for your good. If you're trying and doing the things that you can, maybe everything you do, it really is helping you to become. It's pretty big. There's a lot for us to do. It's not random. We are placed here for a purpose. It's not meaningless, it is sacred, it is intentional. We were meant to be here, and you were meant to be here right now, during this time, because there's something for you to do. And all of the things you've been through, they're shaping you. All of us have gone through really hard things. Um, there's been a lot of things in my life that have been hard and difficult, and I look back and I hate that I had to go through some of them, and yet those very things that were the hardest are the things that shaped me into who I am today. So would I really give them up? I don't know, and I think that's the question, right? Those things that are hard, our mess becomes our message. And we learn from the things that we don't get right the first time, or the tenth time, or the hundredth time. We start learning and growing because of that. This life is shaping you into who you were always meant to become. That's what mortality is about. So if this message resonated with you, and if this is helping you see your life through a different lens, share it with someone who might need this. We all need a little bit of help sometimes. We all need a little encouragement and to know that we're not alone in our messes. And we're not. I have so many messes that I've had to clean up, but this laboratory, this is the perfect place for us to do that. And we have each other to help us along the way. This is Hubble Life. Have understanding, be believing, and live extraordinary. Because when you understand why you're here, what this what mortality is about, when you believe that there's something greater for you to do, you can begin to live extraordinary. You start to see your life through a different lens. You don't just live differently, you understand differently. And that's where some of the magic begins to happen. If you like this, please click the like, subscribe, send it to your friends, share it. As always, thank you for spending just a few minutes with me today. I hope that something that we talked about resonated with you and helped you to see what mortality is and understand and maybe realize just a little bit that this laboratory might be messy, but that's okay. We're all just experimenting in this thing called life. Until next time, have a Hubble life.