Our pains and sicknesses

Bruised, broken, torn for us

I believe You really did it…that you suffered everything for everyone.

And I understand that I can’t understand how You did it…not now - maybe not ever.

I believe that You somehow know my deepest, darkest moments-that You’ve somehow felt what I feel.

You’re not afraid of the dark.

When I sat recently in those hospital waiting rooms and watched real agony walk through the doors, I thought of You.

The young man trembling from pain. He’d somehow come to the hospital by himself. No one was there to comfort him as he sat in the wheelchair, waiting to be seen, quietly crying.

Or the two gay young men, terrified, leaning against each other, trying to be brave. Which one was there for help? They both seemed so wounded.

And the teenage girl, retching into a bright green bag, curled up against herself on the floor just feet away from me. She was in such pain.

There was the one brought in on a stretcher, screaming. I couldn’t tell if they were male or female. They had to be strapped down. I watched unflinching as their whole body stiffened with pain, their hands clenched.

Did they make it? Did relief ever come for them?

The scriptures say You took upon yourself the pains and the sicknesses of your people. That you experienced hunger, thirst, and fatigue. And that you are a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

Atonement was awful for You. You must have sobbed from the unimaginable weight of it, right? I once read somewhere that your greatest pain was the pain of losing the Presence of Father and the comfort of the Comforter. Surely They were both there, watching, calling to You, saying it would be alright, that there would be an end to it - that relief would come.

But not until more pain, so much more.

Scourges. A crown of thorns. Being punched in the face. Mocked and spit upon. Spikes and crosses and thirst. Pierced. “Bruised, broken, torn for us.”

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? Why have you forsaken me?

Does that mean You didn’t know that was going to happen? That when You needed Him most, more than ever before, You felt Father wasn’t there? You felt Him withdraw? Was the reason He didn’t tell You a merciful one? Would telling You it would happen before it happened been too much for You to bear?

How could You even stand it?

I’m trying so hard to do what You want me to do. But the gap between who I am and who I’m supposed to be seems only to widen. I’m calling and calling to You. I know You hear me. I know You know what’s going on - that You’ve already walked where I’m walking. Cried the tears I’m crying. Shook with the fear of all the unanswered questions. I’m trying not to forget that You said it would be hard - harder than ever before. Harder than the hardest things I’ve ever done.

I sometimes look for the moments in Your books when You were lonely, when it seemed that no one understood. I’ve fooled myself by saying that if I had been there, I would have understood, that I would have been there for You.

But it’s not true. I don’t understand. What You felt. What You feel. What You know. Beyond all mortal understanding.

OUR PAIN

Being verbally attacked
Broken bones
Labor and delivery
Physical abuse
Car accidents
Road rash
Broken hips from falling
Torture
Loss of a loved one
Breaking up
Betrayal
Sin (so much sin)
Fear
Shame
Being mocked
Self-doubt
Thunderclap headaches
Arthritis
Night terrors
Grief
Loneliness
Embarrassment

If we’ve ever suffered it, You suffered it

OUR SICKNESSES

Cancers
Stroke
Flu
COVID
Depression
Compression sores
Anxiety
Heart disease
Autoimmune diseases
Crohn’s disease
Blindness
Obesity
Hearing loss
Addiction

Any physical, mental, emotional disease or sickness, You felt it

All this (and so much more) for what?

You already know. Yes, for love. But also to understand. To know to the depths of what we would feel in our greatest sorrows. Your Atonement is just that, a profound descent into the sum total of all our evil, pain, grief, wickedness, sorrow, and sickness. All of mine. All of everyone’s.

“And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people.”

Mosiah 15:1

“Behold, I will go before you and be your rearward⁠; and I will be in your midst⁠, and you shall not be confounded⁠.”

D&C 49:27

Love - astonishing love.