Remember that each of us is being tested, just as the finest cars and planes are tested before they are put into service. They are tested for weaknesses; they are tested for flaws. Can you stand the test? At the bar the Judge will not look us over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars.
Pres. Hugh B. Brown, Conference Report, April 1969
Who heals our wounds, even when they are self-inflicted, so they can become scars without destroying us?
Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy.
3 Nephi 17:7
Some of you have been abused and are victims of the sinful acts of others . . . . Please know that because of the Savior’s Atonement, healing is possible. You are not to blame, for you have not sinned and repentance is not required. The Savior suffered not only for our sins and imperfections, but He also took upon Himself our sorrows (see Alma 7:11). Through His infinite Atonement He will heal you and give you peace. Run to Him. Because of our Savior’s Atonement, God the Father will hear your prayers. He will answer through the Holy Ghost and others who will be placed in your path.
. . . .
A return is always possible because of the Savior’s Atonement.
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Elaine S. Dalton
“You Can Return“, New Era, Mar. 2010, 10–12
From a Church Educational System fireside for young adults on September 13, 2009.
[W]e are promised that in the temple the Lord’s name will be put upon us. It means at root that we become his. The answer to “Who am I?” can never be complete unless it answers “Whose am I?” You are the son or daughter of a king. The Father himself. Through the ordinances you are begotten spiritually through his Son. You become heir to his throne. That is a worldly way of saying it. But it is true. An old Jewish proverb says that the worst thing the evil inclination can ever do to you is to make you forget that you are the son or daughter of a king. I don’t know how you can forget that in the temple. You take his name.
To receive him fully is to receive the fullness of his atonement. Think about it—the at-one-ment that Jesus Christ wrought by the shedding of his own blood. The atonement was, and is, to enable us to overcome through his grace and healing power three things: Ignorance, sin, and death. Hence I often say the temple is a matter of life and death.
“A man cannot be saved in ignorance.” This passage refers to a specific kind of ignorance. The preceding verse is talking about sealing, about coming to know by revelation through the power of the Holy Priesthood not only that Jesus is the Christ, but also that a relationship has been forged between you and Jesus Christ. It is a testimony that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that he is making you his. How do you come to know that? I can only tell you that the promise does pertain to the temple. And we may come to a like testimony about temple sealings to our progenitors and our children.
The Savior said that he came that men might have life, and have it more abundantly. Life, abundant life, is pluralized in the teachings of Joseph Smith as “eternal lives.”
You are all alive in several ways and to certain degrees. You are alive intellectually; you think, you study, you teach. There is, no matter what else we do each day, the life of the mind. Then there is the life of the heart. The word in Hebrew is leb, “heart,” the inmost throbbing center. A hard heart is different than a malleable, tender heart. Christ’s heart is tender. Those who come to him feeling mercy and gratitude for his mercy are tenderized in the very center of their being.
We seek life in another way. It is the creative life. It is lodged in the cry of ancient Israelite fathers and mothers: “Give me children, or I die.” This is the life of creation and procreation.
I testify that in the house of the Lord all three of these modes of life are enhanced and magnified and increased. Therein we are promised that whatever our age or the decline and disabilities that we experience here, we will one day enter in at the gate to eternal lives. On that day of renewal, we will emerge into a celestial condition, into the “fulness of the glory of the Father.” There the glorious privilege of priesthood, parenthood, and godhood come together as one. There will be the reunion of the separated forever. As this is the crowning ordinance of the house of God, it is also the crowning truth of the gospel.
Truman G. Madsen
The Temple and the Atonement, The Maxwell Institute
So, I ask the question to myself, “Which of Jesus Christ’s teachings or stories is the most meaningful or relevant in my life today as a woman, a psychologist, and a professor . . . and why?” And, as a member of the Mormon faith, “What compels me to voluntarily commit so much of my time and money engaged in things besides my career/family, when both can be in short supply?”
I look to Christ. In my opinion, EVERY teaching of Christ leads to the atonement, and arguably my three favorite scriptures describe the essence of the Atonement—that is, Christ’s willingness, ability, and eternal commitment to find, fix, bind up, repair, make whole and holy everyone who is lost or broken. One of the most touching moments in Christ’s mortal life that illustrates His profound commitment to heal us is recorded in Matthew 14:12-14. Jesus had just received word that His beloved cousin and closest friend, John the Baptist, had just been murdered by Herod. He is devastated by grief. He goes away by Himself to mourn and weep, but the multitudes follow Him, clamoring for help—and, at this moment of His deepest need, He rises up, goes to them and begins ministering to their needs. Because that’s what Christ does: He ministers, He heals, He fills us, no matter His own fatigue or sorrows.
Second, there is a particular component of Jesus’ life that has always overwhelmed and touched me. It is best reflected in the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” The scene in John 11:35 . . . Christ at the side of Mary and Martha grieving at the death of their brother, Lazarus. Can you just picture the Savior of the world, overcome with sadness because of a profound loss? The scriptures do not say that he cried or just shed a few tears—but the Master wept! What a model of pure empathy.
And my third favorite “one-liner” from Christ, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, tutors me about relationally responding to all of His children when He says, “Go and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:37). Really, I believe we can almost encapsulate the entire Gospel message in these three passages: In a moment of His own pain the Savior ministers to others; He displays God-like empathy, and then He acts.
Marilyn S. Wright
Personal Testimony of the Power of Christ’s Empathy, Mormon Scholars Testify