Today’s BYU-Idaho devotional speaker was Carrie Valora who talked to the students about how they can see their failures as successes and use that view of life to bless others.

In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, Carrie said that as she looks back on some trials in her life, she has started to see them as successes.

“I like who I am today because of the refining that it has created in my life or caused me to have,” Valora said.

People experience so many different trials. Anything from having a mental disability to having a family member pass away. Valora said her hardest trial has probably been her divorce she went through many years ago.

She said that going through a divorce was like having a death in the family but she was able to take some benefits from the experience.

“I also found who I am and with that experience, I have been able to share with those who are contemplating divorce or who have gone through a divorce just to let them know that the lord is there and not to fall away from the gospel,” she said.

In her devotional address, she tells the story of a man who fell into a well and calls out for help. Many people pass by but then one man jumps down into the well.

“What are you doing?” the man asked, “I’ve been yelling all day and you were my only hope. Now we are both trapped.”

“Don’t worry,” the man’s friend said, “I know how to get out of here, follow me.”

Valora said she hopes people understand from her devotional that there is someone out there who feels the same way and we can reach out and help lead people out of their wells.

“There may be people here that don’t feel like a success,” Valora said in the devotional. “They feel like failures, they are not just alone, they are lonely.”

She said loneliness can be dangerous, not just to your self-worth, but it can also affect your relationship with others and with Heavenly Father.

“We stop listening to those good voices and knowing our divine potential and we start following the world or listening to Satan and we just get deeper and deeper into despair,” Valora told BYU-Idaho Radio.

Studying the scriptures, praying and reaching out to others, Valora said, are the best ways to combat those feelings.

“We don’t have to go through it alone,” Valora said. “Our trials are not just for us to go through alone, but for us to share.”