Thanking God

Today's challenge is about gratitude, so I'd like to take a moment to go beyond forgiving God for letting me come to Earth and actually thank Him for it. (This will put me at 17 out of 22, by the way, just in case anyone is keeping track.)

As I said yesterday, mortality is tough, but it's also an incredible opportunity. Without this opportunity, we would literally have been damned. Our progress would have been permanently halted by our lack of mortal experience and our inability to gain it. But since we were born on Earth, we all have the opportunity to learn and grow in ways we couldn't have imagined.

And even without considering the eternal blessings we'll get out of having been alive, there are some pretty great temporal blessings, too. This world is wonderfully beautiful, having a body is amazing, and even with only a handful of decades to work with, life can be richly rewarding and/or a lot of fun.

Yesterday, I expressed complaints about some of the negative aspects of life, but in doing so, I largely ignored the positive aspects of life. Yes, mortality is often challenging, but those challenges help us develop strength that we couldn't develop in any other way. Life can be painful, but it can also be comfortable, and any pain we experience helps us appreciate our comfort even more.

The worst part about mortality is the risk of eternal damnation, but that risk is probably smaller than we think, especially if we care at all about it. If we are at all concerned about the importance of being righteous, then we're probably being righteous enough that we don't really need to be worried.

And that leads me to another thing to be thankful for: The Atonement. Not only did God give us the great opportunity to continue to progress, He also bent over backward to make sure that we wouldn't get hopelessly stuck on any of life's challenges. He made it possible, through the power of the Atonement, to overcome any obstacle, even the consequences of sin.

All told, mortality is a blessing for which it is well worth thanking God. It's not all rainbows and sunshine, and there are some risks involved, but it's an incredible opportunity and a thrilling ride. It has downsides, but it has plenty of upsides, too. It's challenging, but it's worth it. Yesterday, I forgave God for thrusting me into this world; today, I thank Him for doing so. This is the best world I can remember living in, and living in it has been the greatest experience I've ever had. That may not be saying much, but it says enough to convince me that I should say "thanks" to God.