Imagine, if you will, that you are sitting at a table. Seated across from you is the Savior. You begin to pour out your whole soul to Him. You express your feelings of despair. You try to explain your heartache. You tell Him that you are in such a dark place, you can no longer see the light. He sits there quietly, intently listening to each word. Without saying anything, He stands up and moves closer to you. He wraps His arms around you and you cry into the sleeve of His robe. His Spirit speaks to yours and it is then that you realize that He knows exactly what you are feeling. He endured it Himself all those years ago. Every physical, spiritual, and emotional pain that you and every single human to ever walk the earth has experienced or will experience--He suffered in Gethsemane. He is well-acquainted with grief. He knows it better than anyone. For you He bled from every pore. For you He cried out to the Father. For you He allowed evil men to take Him….beat Him….and nail Him to a cross. Interestingly, if you were the only other person to ever live, He would have gone through the Atonement for just you alone. He is, in fact, the light that you seek. And not only did He suffer in the Garden and on the Cross, He also suffers with you now. Your tears are His tears.
This week I had this “vision” in my mind. Heaven is all around us. God is reaching out to us, but in order to close that gap, we too must reach out to Him. He could reach us on His own because He can do all things. But He wants us to reach up and out to Him. When we put Him first, the darkness dispels. Darkness and Light cannot exist at the same time. Satan would have us believe that there is no hope. He has an appetite for our misery. He wants to see us fail. He is the shroud of enveloping darkness. Oh how he delights when we are discouraged. He wants us to be unhappy forever because that is how he will remain...forever. He tries to convince us that there is no point in going on. He desires that we abandon our faith. He and his numerous hosts fight like dragons to win us over to the shadowy dark side. And what do they have to gain? Nothing of value really. Just another miserable person on their side. But in the end, all of those who choose that “side” will end up with nothing.
So are we fighting equally as hard (or harder) to save ourselves? Isn’t our reward far greater? Should we not wrestle with all our might to conquer this evil that offers us no benefit? I find it so interesting that sometimes Satan is willing to put in more effort for us than we are willing to put in for ourselves! It’s almost as if he wants our torment more than we want joy.
I recently started doing something that has helped improve my personal prayers. As I kneel and bow my head, in my mind I can almost see my Heavenly Father sitting there intently listening to what I have to say. He IS there. He IS listening. So when I try and picture Him in my mind doing just that, it makes my prayers more meaningful. I think more about what I truly want to say to Him. Obviously, I don’t know what He looks like for sure, but if you think about what Love would look like, that is what He looks like, I’m sure. Because God is Love. We cannot fully fathom the kind of Love that He has for us. But every so often, we catch a glimpse of that Love.
