Opportunities

"All of us face challenges in our daily lives. Yet in challenges lie some of our greatest opportunities. ... The opportunities available to us are endless."
--H David Burton, "A season of opportunity", November 1998 Ensign pg. 9
 
When I read this quote, I started thinking about the challenges I faced.
It occurred to me that it is because of those challenges that I am who I am today.
 
Those challenges made me stronger. Because of those challenges, I have acquired skills I probably would have not acquired. I made choices that I would have not otherwise made.
 
Am I perfect? No, of course not. I still have a long, long, very long way to go before perfection. I still have a lot of opportunities to make mistakes. However, I also have a lot of opportunities to better myself.
 
Challenges stretch us; challenges place us out of the comfort zone. It is when we get out of our comfort zone that we learn new things.
 
When all is said and done, we can look back and see how far we have come, because of those challenges.
 
After all, think of when we were learning to walk. We faced challenges. We had to come up with ways to help us stand, so we grabbed onto anything around us to pull ourselves up and hold on to.
 
We had to come up with ways to walk, so as we held on to things around us, we took one step at the time. And when we wanted to reach something and there were no more things to hold on to, we took small steps on our own and as we fell, we got up and tried again.
 
Those were big challenges for us during that stage of life. Yet, we did not give up. We took those challenges as opportunities to learn something new.
 
Eventually, because we kept stretching ourselves and kept getting up when down, we learned to walk.