Laminating Dough

I was thinking about the commandment to learn line upon line and how it relates to laminating dough. When you make croissants, for example, you use a process called laminating dough, which, basically, involves flattening and stretching out the dough, covering the dough in a layer of butter and then folding the dough into thirds, and then stretching it out again and then folding it back in, and then stretching it out, and then back in. What this does is create hundreds of layers of dough, butter, dough, butter, and when you bake it, the water in the butter evaporates, causing the layers of dough to puff up, while the fat in the butter basically fries the dough, and you've got this light, airy yet crispy treat that everyone loves. Like a baker rolling out laminated dough, life often comes along and flattens us with hard lessons that seem to stretch us to the breaking point. And when we regroup and repent and try to learn from these hard lessons, it's like we're folding ourselves back in. And then life stretches us out and then we try to gather ourselves back in. And it may seem that this constant stretching out and folding back in is pointless and hopeless since every time we fold ourselves back up, something else comes along and flattens us. But we are learning line upon line, layer upon layer, and every time we repent, we are folding in another layer of the oil of the gospel, another layer of the redeeming light and warmth of our Savior's love into our soul.