(1/3) “I was on top of the world. Everything in life seemed to be going my way, and then with the click of a button, everything was turned upside down. I sat on my bed and yelled and cried across the room: ‘Why would God do this to me? How could He let this happen?’ I had decided earlier in the year that if I would strive to do my best, God would take care of the rest. As I thought of all I had sacrificed, the anger came stronger, and I again said out loud to God: ‘Where are you? I chose the right!’ Then I was impressed to search for a poem about a person who is looking at his life and compares it to walking on the beach with the Savior. He notices that there are two sets of footprints in the sand, and scenes of his life start to flash in the sky. He finds that occasionally there are only one set of footprints. It happens to be during the most trying and darkest times of his life. At the end of the poem, he asks the Lord: ‘Why is it when I was going through my hardest times that you left me? Why is it that during those darkest times I only see one set of footprints?’ The Lord responds to him by saying, ‘That is when I carried you.’ At that moment for me, it felt like the Lord was saying, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got you even though it’s so hard for you to see that I am carrying you right now.’ As I look back at my life, I realize He was carrying me through my darkest times. “There’s this term called the ‘refiner’s fire,’ and life seems to continually be that for everyone. When I go through difficult times and trials, I smile because I understand what that fire is and that Heavenly Father is molding me right now. He allows the heat to increase so that I can be shaped into whom I need to become. I learned that I needed to trust God, continue doing the best I could, and allow Him to carry me. I started to see how I could be an instrument in His hands to do the things He needed me to do. I don’t know why things happen. But I must have faith. It doesn’t need to be perfect, but I need to be patient. I can’t always control what happens, but I can control how I react and always try to be a positive light and good influence on others.” —Manti