Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest

“Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.
"Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower than all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief."

Chieko Okazaki

the power to win

I was going through my drafts and found this post. I don't know why I never posted it. It made me smile to have a pretty accurate example of the perfectly normal chaos in my childhood home.

And then I laughed. We still have conversations like this.

--

My family just started reading in 3rd Nephi. We were just starting with chapter 1, and we attempted to relate the scriptures to us, giving a scenario something like this:
"So what if President Monson was told that we were going to be deported tomorrow? The government said, 'Hey. Five years ago your Prophet Hinckley said that five years from we would see this sign because the Savior would come. Your five years are up, and we haven't seen anything. If we don't see anything in 24 hours, every member of your church is going to be deported.' That's kind of what these Lamanites said to the Nephites. So President Monson..."

We're interrupted. Aria says something like, "Wait, but the Nephites all died. They were gone when Christopher Columbus got here. So how was the land already settled?"

We all look at her because we have no idea where this has come from. She's kind of close, but Christopher Columbus? Really? Most of my siblings and I start laughing.

"No, Ar. The Nephites disappeared, but there were Lamanites still. But hang on, that's not what we're talking about."

But she got a reaction. So she keeps going.

"But Christopher Columbus!"
"Aria. That's not we're talking about. We're making this work for the less cognitive in the room [because there aren't enough of us paying attention]. Stay with us."

We finish the discussion, relating President Monson to Nephi and what he would have done in our day to make it more significant what Nephi did. We keep reading. Aria manages to get herself banished from the couch because she can't sit still for more than 5 seconds, even though she's been warned plenty of times that if she can't sit for at least a minute, she's going to be sent to bed. It took a few minutes to get back on track.

"Now that we have the less cognitive out of the room, we can continue."
"What did you call her?"
"READ."

I love scripture study at my house.


[title from scripture power by clive romney]