Welcome to the Recent Speaches Podcast presented by BYU Speaches, featuring inspiring new

devotionals and forums given each week on BYU campus.

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This devotional address entitled, Working Through Wobble, was given on July 1st of

2025 by Dawan L. Coombs, then Associate Professor of English at BYU.

Good morning. In preparation for this devotional, I have felt a portion of the love our Heavenly Father and the Savior have for you, the young adults of the church. I feel it as I walk across campus and see you studying, running to class, sleeping on the lawn, and fellowshiping with one another. In these moments, I marvel at the opportunities ahead for you,

and it's my prayer today that you will receive the revelation the Lord has for you as you prepare for your

future. I'm a professor of English here at BYU, and in class a few years ago, some of my students

observed that most literature centers around heavy, sometimes depressing conflicts. And as we discussed possible

reasons for this, including that literature often mirrors life, one student asked,

so is life really just one big existential crisis? And for a moment, her question took me it back.

No, I thought. I immediately wanted to resist. but as I gazed back at her and the other

earnest, wrinkle-free faces in the room, a sports center highlight reel of trials I've experienced

since my 20s played through my mind. And amidst wonderful blessings, I also recalled heart-wrenching

challenges that sometimes came in multiple doses applied simultaneously.

Now, this would have been the perfect opportunity to tell my students what I will tell you today.

The Jesus Christ and His Atonement offers support and strength that will sustain you through these moments.

But instead, I said something else.

And when I finished, my students gazed at me like a dementer who had just sucked all hope out of the room.

This moment haunts me as one of my biggest teacher fails, because theirs was a sincere question

and one that some of you may be wondering about as well.

...