Easter Thoughts

I was not blessed to be mighty in speech - in fact, I occasionally feel, like Moses, that I am "slow of speech and slow of tongue".

However, I hope that God will give me words to express my feelings about the topic I want to address.

True love is, I believe, seeing a person as not only what they are, but what they could be. It's understanding. It's knowing that someone is not perfect, but believing that they are still good.

That is what I believe the Savior does for us.

Ages ago, in a stable, in a manger, the Most Important Person Ever came to earth. From this the humblest of beginnings would come the Savior, the Prince of Peace. In the scriptures we're told that He grew to be "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3) - because He spent His time lifting the lowly, rebuking but gently forgiving the penitent sinners, performing miracles. Consistently the Bible accounts for His visits among the poor, the sick, the afflicted of mind and body. He was a man of sorrows because He spent much of His time among the suffering and the weary, and because He loved those who suffered and were weary. Jesus Christ was acquainted with grief because most of His earthly life dealt with watching they whom He loved most - us normal people - struggle with heavy burdens, sometimes because we live in a fallen world and sometimes because we, like the Pharisees, "despised and rejected" Him.

Mercifully, however, His acquaintanceship with grief and sorrows was not limited to the role of a passerby or an observer or even just a helper. Because He understood perfectly every specific detail and nuance of the human experience, because He knew of those who preceded Him and those who would come after and He knew that they would suffer, and because His love for you and I and everyone who has ever been on earth was so great and infinite, He made the ultimate descent into all humanity's specific affliction and suffering.

Imagine it. Not only did He miraculously, amazingly, against all odds, make up for the sins and misdeeds of every forlorn, spiritually crippled, imperfect person, and individually, I might add; but He suffered all the pain and sorrow we feel as a consequence of those sins.

He "descended below all things" - He knows how it feels to struggle with the awful numbness of depression, the freezing terror of anxiety, and He even spent time in the hellish darkness of what Elder Holland calls "divine withdrawal" - experiencing what He, as the Perfect One, the unblemished lamb, had never experienced, as He suffered the unspeakable agony of living a life of chosen separation from God. He did it all. 

He knows how it felt to see that "C" on your report card - the self-loathing, the stress about college that comes with it, the fear of your parents' disappointment. He suffered both the physical and emotional pain of devastating, career-ruining injuries. He knows what it is to lose a father, a mother, a wife, a husband, a child. He knows the difficulty of battling with the demons that inhabit the mind of those with severe and debilitating mental illness. All of this He took upon Himself, and why?

Because He loved us enough to want to understand why we are who we are. He wanted to see where we came from so He could be there as we strive - and occasionally fight - to get to where we want to stay. He loved and loves us so much that He wants to be with us forever, and is willing to help us every step of the excruciating but conversely wonderful way back to Him. Not only is He willing, but He is perfectly able, given that He has experienced everything we did.

I am so, so grateful that He did that.

I have a pretty easy life; however, that isn't to say that I don't have times where I am overwhelmed by the (admittedly occasionally trivial) problems that I have to deal with. In hindsight, I can be grateful for these moments of hopelessness and sadness and sin, because they force me to my knees, pleading for mercy, forgiveness, and help, which Jesus Christ so willingly and ably has provided for me.

I testify that every time I've been in despair, confusion or pain that I cannot personally handle, and have begged for relief, safety, or guidance, He consistently comes through with all that and more. He is there. He wants to help. And it's so easy to access His grace - all you have to do is pray for it. And if you do, not only will He save you from yourself, as miraculous and wonderful as that is, He will change your life, strengthen your soul, and bless you abundantly. Because He just loves you so freaking much.

This is what true love is. He not only uunderstands me perfectly, He loves me in my selfish, rebellious, proud, altogether imperfect state. Because He knows me. He knows my potential - and instead of seeing me as the person I am, He somehow views me as the person He knows that I can be if I follow Him.

I conclude my personal witness with these favorite song lyrics:
"Jesus is a God of miracles;
Nothing is at all impossible to Him.
But I know this; of all His miracles,
The most incredible must be
The miracle that rescued me."

Today, thank Him for the miracle of your own salvation.

Happy Easter.