The Past, Present, and Future

            To be truly happy we need to be at peace with our past, our present and our future.  So often we think of our happiness as something that exists in the present.  We forget that we are spiritual offspring of a Being who dwells in an Eternal Now.  We underestimate the impact of both our past and future on our capacity to feel joy.

            We feel sad when a loved one passes away.  Why?  Because they aren't present with us?  Partially, but that isn't the whole story.  You don't see a husband sobbing at his bedside because his wife went to the store for a few minutes and isn't physically near his side.  No, we cry when loved ones die because we see before us a future that doesn't include the deceased person, at least for the short term.  However, just taking into account the present and future doesn't do justice to the situation either.  Every day on the news we hear stories of people dying in horrible ways, people who are also not physically with us and who we will not see for a great while either.  Why, then, do we mourn the passing of those closest to us so much more then the death of those that we do not know?  Because of the past.  Because of the years and years of memories that have woven our heart together with theirs.

            Take away any of these three perspectives and the sadness we feel at funerals would not exist.  Take away the past and we would be attending the last rites of a stranger.  Take away the pang of a future without our loved one and we are just a man waiting for his wife to come home from the store.  Take away their absence in the present and you have exactly what we have now:  an understanding that the people we love will die at some point, but that it isn't something to worry about until it happens.

            How about happiness?  At a marriage, the bride and groom are happy because the event 1) is a culmination of happy events of the past, 2) is the beginning of happy years (and hopefully even longer, if they are married in the temple) in the future, and 3) because the present moment ties into one and makes permanent the happiness of both past and future.

            Knowing this fact, that our past, present, and future all affect our overall frame of mind, we can change a lot about our lives.  For example, we can repent of our past sins so that our present companionship of the Holy Ghost and future eternal possibilities will not be limited.  We can change our perspective and understanding of the future by reading priesthood blessings we received long ago and by learning more about how God works in our lives through the whispering of the Spirit here and now, which will affect our interpretation of the past as well as our present attitudes.  We can take action today so that tomorrow we will feel better about how our yesterday went.

            Is it any wonder, then, that eternal life, the greatest happiness we can receive, is composed of a perfectly pure past, a present that is always in God's Presence, and an eternal future of constant progression with those that we love?  Through the timeless gift of Jesus Christ, whose Atonement reaches back endlessly to clean us from our mistakes and which sustains us each moment, the day may come that all that the Father has will be given to us.