I testify that while there are physical ailments that are not healed, all spiritual illness can be healed because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. If we will but use the God-given ingredients to cause such healing, it will happen. I testify of His healing power and promise that His prescription is the only cure for peace, happiness, and rest to one’s soul.
Elder Malcolm S. Jeppsen
“A Divine Prescription for Spiritual Healing,” Ensign, May 1994, 17
In this education [the trials of mortality] we experience misery and happiness, sickness and health, the sadness from sin and the joy of forgiveness. That forgiveness can come only through the infinite Atonement of the Savior, which He worked out through pain we could not bear and which we can only faintly comprehend.
It will comfort us when we must wait in distress for the Savior’s promised relief that He knows, from experience, how to heal and help us. The Book of Mormon gives us the certain assurance of His power to comfort. And faith in that power will give us patience as we pray and work and wait for help. He could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but He chose to learn by His own personal experience.
President Henry B. Eyring
“Adversity,” Ensign, May 2009, 23–27
Our repentance and our continued obedience are thus necessary prerequisites to our receiving the sustaining, healing, and compensating power that flows from belonging to Christ-not because we can “repent” of our undeserved pains and infirmities, but because we must repent of our sins to be entitled to the relationship whose healing and nurturing influence will wipe away all our other tears. That such incomprehensible blessings are unlocked through the two-way covenants of the Atonement unveils an entire body of well-developed, powerful doctrine that gives meaning, life, and theological foundations to our search for peace and personal growth. Because we are his and he is ours, the Lord will continually “at-one for” our separation and estrangement from him, whether that separation has been caused by our sins, our mistakes, the sins of others, or any other cause.
These are the blessings of belonging to Christ, ultimately made possible by the power of his Atonement: “O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.” (Isaiah 43:1-3; emphasis added.)
These sublime promises describe the Savior not as our judge but as our advocate. So has he described himself: “Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father.” (D&C 29:5; emphasis added.) His advocacy-his defense of us before the judgment bar of the Father-derives directly from his atoning act for us: “In mine own name, by the virtue of the blood which I have spilt, have I pleaded before the Father for them.” (D&C 38:4.) In that role, as our champion, he “is pleading [our] cause before [the Father], saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; . . . spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.” (D&C 45:3-5.)
We must always seek to be on the Lord’s side; but what good news it is to know that he is on our side
Elder Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen
The Belonging Heart: The Atonement and Relationships with God and Family
Deseret Books (March 1994)
“Jesus’ daily mortal experiences and His ministry, to be sure, acquainted Him by observation with a sample of human sicknesses, grief, pains, sorrows, and infirmities which are ‘common to man’ (1 Cor. 10:13). But the agonies of the atonement were infinite and first-hand! Since not all human sorrow and pain is connected to sin, the full intensiveness of the Atonement involved bearing our pains, infirmities, and sicknesses, as well as our sins. Whatever our sufferings, we can safely cast our ‘care upon him; for he careth for [us]‘ (1 Pet. 5:7).” 10
Who could even begin to fathom the depths of the suffering and the depths of the pain that the Savior condescended to take upon himself so that he could meet the needs of his children and redeem them? No wonder it could be said, “The Son of Man hath descended below them all” (D&C 122:8).
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
quoted by Elder Gerald N. Lund in Selected Writings of Gerald N. Lund, (1995, Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, Utah)
There is another temptation to be resisted. It is to yield to the despairing thought that it is too hard and too late to repent. I knew a man once who could have thought that and given up. When he was 12 he was ordained a deacon. Some of his friends tempted him to begin to smoke. He began to feel uncomfortable in church. He left his little town, not finishing high school, to begin a life following construction jobs across the United States. He was a heavy-equipment operator. He married. They had children. The marriage ended in a bitter divorce. He lost his children. He lost an eye in an accident. He lived alone in boardinghouses. He lost everything he owned except what he could carry in a trunk.
One night, as he prepared to move yet again, he decided to lighten the load of that trunk. Beneath the junk of years, he found a book. He never knew how it got there. It was the Book of Mormon. He read it through, and the Spirit told him it was true. He knew then that all those years ago he had walked away from the true Church of Jesus Christ and from the happiness which could have been his.
Later, he was my more-than-70-year-old district missionary companion. I asked the people we were teaching, as I testified of the power of the Savior’s Atonement, to look at him. He had been washed clean and given a new heart, and I knew they would see that in his face. I told the people that what they saw was evidence that the Atonement of Jesus Christ could wash away all the corrosive effects of sin.
That was the only time he ever rebuked me. He told me in the darkness outside the trailer where we had been teaching that I should have told the people that while God was able to give him a new heart, He had not been able to give him back his wife and his children and what he might have done for them. But he had not looked back in sorrow and regret for what might have been. He moved forward, lifted by faith, to what yet might be.
One day he told me that in a dream the night before, the sight in his blind eye was restored. He realized that the dream was a glimpse of a future day, walking among loving people in the light of a glorious resurrection. Tears of joy ran down the deeply lined face of that towering, raw-boned man. He spoke to me quietly, with a radiant smile. I don’t remember what he said he saw, but I remember that his face shone with happy anticipation as he described the view. With the Lord’s help and the miracle of that book in the bottom of a trunk, it had not for him been too late nor the way too hard.
Elder Henry B. Eyring
“Do Not Delay,” Ensign, Nov 1999, 33
Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
“Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.”
Here see the Bread of Life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.
Come Ye Disconsolate, Hymn 115
The scriptures contain many accounts of the Savior’s healing the heavy laden. He caused the blind to see; the deaf to hear; the palsied, withered, or maimed to be restored; lepers to be cleansed; and unclean spirits to be cast out. Often we read that the person healed of these physical ailments was “made whole” (see Matthew 14:36; 15:28; Mark 6:56; 10:52; Luke 17:19; John 5:9).
Jesus healed many from physical diseases, but He did not withhold healing from those who sought to be “made whole” from other ailments. Matthew writes that He healed every sickness and every disease among the people (see Matthew 4:23; 9:35). Great multitudes followed Him, and He “healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). Surely these healings included those whose sicknesses were emotional, mental, or spiritual. He healed them all.
In His early sermon in the synagogue, Jesus read aloud from this prophecy of Isaiah: “He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18). As Jesus declared that He was come to fulfill that prophecy, He expressly affirmed that He would heal those with physical ailments and He would also deliver the captive, liberate the bruised, and heal the brokenhearted.
. . . .
The Savior teaches that we will have tribulation in the world, but we should “be of good cheer” because He has “overcome the world” (John 16:33). His Atonement reaches and is powerful enough not only to pay the price for sin but also to heal every mortal affliction. The Book of Mormon teaches that “He shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11; see also 2 Nephi 9:21).
He knows of our anguish, and He is there for us. Like the good Samaritan in His parable, when He finds us wounded at the wayside, He binds up our wounds and cares for us (see Luke 10:34). Brothers and sisters, the healing power of His Atonement is for you, for us, for all.
. . . .
A woman whose marriage was threatened by her husband’s addiction to pornography wrote how she stood beside him for five pain-filled years until, as she said, “through the gift of our precious Savior’s glorious Atonement and what He taught me about forgiveness, [my husband] finally is free—and so am I.” As one who needed no cleansing from sin, but only sought a loved one’s deliverance from captivity, she wrote this advice:
“Commune with the Lord. … He is your best friend! He knows your pain because He has felt it for you already. He is ready to carry that burden. Trust Him enough to place it at His feet and allow Him to carry it for you. Then you can have your anguish replaced with His peace, in the very depths of your soul” (letter dated Apr. 18, 2005).
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
“He Heals the Heavy Laden,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 6–9
. . . relief can begin with the counsel of parents, priesthood leaders, and, when needed, the help of competent professionals. Yet you need not experience a lifetime of counseling. Complete healing will come through your faith in Jesus Christ and His power and capacity, through His Atonement, to heal the scars of that which is unjust and undeserved.
Elder Richard G. Scott
“To Be Free of Heavy Burdens,” Ensign, Nov 2002, 86
We know that some look back on their divorces with regret at their own partial or predominant fault in the breakup. All who have been through divorce know the pain and need the healing power and hope that come from the Atonement. That healing power and that hope are there for them and also for their children.
. . . .
If you are already descending into the low state of marriage-in-name-only, please join hands, kneel together, and prayerfully plead for help and the healing power of the Atonement. Your humble and united pleadings will bring you closer to the Lord and to each other and will help you in the hard climb back to marital harmony.
. . . .
Consider these observations of a wise bishop with extensive experience in counseling members with marriage problems. Speaking of those who eventually divorced, he said:
“Universally, every couple or individual said they recognized that divorce was not a good thing, but they all insisted that their situation was different.
“Universally, they focused on the fault of the spouse and attributed little responsibility to their own behavior. Communication had withered.
“Universally, they were looking back, not willing to leave the baggage of past behavior on the roadside and move on.
“Part of the time, serious sin was involved, but more often they had just ‘fallen out of love,’ saying, ‘He doesn’t satisfy my needs anymore,’ or, ‘She has changed.’
“All were worried about the effect on the children, but always the conclusion was ‘it’s worse for them to have us together and fighting.’ ”
In contrast, the couples who followed this bishop’s counsel and stayed together emerged with their marriages even stronger. That prospect began with their mutual commitment to keep the commandments, stay active in their Church attendance, scripture reading, and prayer, and to work on their own shortcomings. They “recognized the importance and power of the Atonement for their spouse and for themselves,” and “they were patient and would try again and again.” When the couples he counseled did these things, repenting and working to save their marriages, this bishop reported that “healing was achieved 100 percent of the time.”
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
“Divorce,” Ensign, May 2007, 70–73