"Opposition and Joy"

Before I left on my road trip to Colorado I had been reading a book by Bruce R. Hafen called "The Broken Heart." On Sat. as I was feeling very discouraged and not well, while looking for a paper in my office/sewing room I came upon a pile and found my book. I went in the living room on the couch and started reading. When I opened the book I was in the chapter titled, "Opposition and Joy." I haven't been feeling very much joy lately so I was interested in what he had to say. "The ultimate purpose of the Atonement is to ensure our happiness and joy." Then he goes on to tell us that when Adam and Eve went into the "lone and dreary world" they would find opposition in all things." They needed to experience the "misery of mortality in order to comprehend the sweet taste of joy. If they had remained in Eden, "they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew not sin." Before the accident that took Kamber away from our family I feel like we were in a bubble, and that bad things only happened to other families not ours. After the call that changed my life forever, I was walking down my hall pounding on the wall and yelling "Heavenly Father why us?" I will never forget the words I heard in my mind, "why not you?" At the end of the chapter Brother Hafen says," Somehow, our joyful experiences mean more when we are fully conscious of the alternatives and the contrasts that surround us. We prize our health when we see sickness. We truly love peace when we know the ugliness of war. The ultimate end of the Atonement, surrounded by such opposistion is "the great plan of happiness." I don't know if we will ever experience the true joy while on this earth but hopefully some day it will come.