Oh how I love this quote from President Uchtdorf. I am learning to truly love the atonement of Jesus Christ, not that I didn't love it before, but in my younger years, I used to believe that He only atoned for my sins. It took me so much longer (and way more experience) to discover that He also atoned for my sorrows, my anxieties, and my aching heart.
The atonement means to literally become "at one with" Jesus Christ. How could we become one with Him if He did not understand us? If He did not know our deepest hurts and anguish. If He did not rejoice in our overcoming. If He did know love us in spite of our faults and failings. As I have struggled to understand the atonement, I have grown closer to my Savior and my Redeemer. I depend on Him more. I want to please Him more. I love Him even more.
The best thing about all this for me is that we truly can go forth with clean hands and a pure heart. The past is not and never has been our future. It is a path, and we get to choose the turnings in it. If we spend too much time looking backward on our journey, we will stumble even more over the current obstacles. We can leave every part of our past behind. We don't have to forget it, but we do need to learn from it and then let it go.
I am not trying to sound like that will be the easy thing to do. I know from my own experience, that it is one of the hardest things any of us can do. I am so much harder on myself than anyone else will ever me. I judge me at my worst, and compare myself with you at your best. I am hopelessly lost some days, yet seem to have it all together on others. It brings me comfort to know and understand that I don't have to have it all together in order to be close to Him. He loves me in my weakness and my messiness. He loves me in my weeping and my uncertainty. He loves me with my wild morning hair and my stubbornness. He loves me just as I am.
By myself, I would never make it, but with Him, I am starting to realize the potential in me to become just a little better each and everyday. With Him, I am enough.
Very good post. It too took me a while before I realized that Christ didn't just die for our sins. Somehow I had missed that part.
ReplyDeleteOH, me too! I got so focused on the sins part that I completely missed the point that He really understands us in all our weaknesses.
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