C. S. Lewis: “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes
in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is
doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so
on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But
presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and
does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that
He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out
a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making
courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage:
but He is building a palace. …’ (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952, p. 160.)”
(“The Value of Home Life,” Ensign, Feb. 1972, 5).
President Brigham Young taught the following about having an
eternal perspective and about the glory that comes to the faithful: “We talk
about our trials and troubles here in this life but suppose that you could see
yourselves thousands and millions of years after you have proved faithful to
your religion during the few short years in this time, and have obtained
eternal salvation and a crown of glory in the presence of God? Then look back
upon your lives here, and see the losses, crosses, and disappointments … you
would be constrained to exclaim, ‘but what of all that? Those things were but
for a moment, and we are now here. We have been faithful during a few moments
in our mortality, and now we enjoy eternal life and glory’” (“Remarks,” Deseret
News, Nov. 9, 1859, 1). (See also Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual, 2nd
ed. Church Educational System manual, 2001, 119-20.)
