The Atonement

Hello Blog Family!

Wow, it has been so long. I have been home for quite a while now and just have never found the time to write again on my blog and I am sorry for that. From now on it'll be more frequent. I have been home from my mission for for 4 months, and every day gets easier and easier. I miss Pennsylvania and the people that I miss, but I am continuing with life the way I know God wants me to. I spent the summer working 65 plus hours a week at a fishing lodge in Alaska,  and in September started school at Brigham Young University- Idaho. It has been a really big adjustment for me, but I have loved it so far! I am taking a religion class now that requires us to right our thoughts about certain gospel topics and I thought, "wow, a perfect time to start the blog again!" And for that reason, I write today.

I have been thinking a lot recently about The Atonement of Jesus Christ and it's power to heal and empower us. When I first came home, I expected everything to run very smoothly. Surely the blessing for serving a full time mission would outpour, old habits and sins had vanished, and all that I wanted would kind of just be handed to me. I was very wrong. In fact, those only sins made their reappearance, I found my self lost in a new town, with new people, and a new purpose I had yet to discover. I quickly found myself becoming depressed and anxious. One day while I was in sacrament meeting I had the prompting to read the 14th chapter of Mosiah in The Book of Mormon. My favorite verses read:

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Since then, I read this every Sunday because it brings me peace and comfort. I saw the Saviors atonement in a different light. Christ is more than acquainted with grief and sorrow. He was let down often by his followers, until one of his own disciples turned him in for a bag of silver. But I know that in the Garden of Gethsemane, he felt the grief and sorrow of the whole world. He felt every time I have felt hopeless, every time I felt angry, and every time I felt lonely. Because he felt the grief and the sorrow of the whole world, he can comfort us and help us find the way out. 

The other day I helped clean the Rexburg Temple with some other kids my age and I was assigned the job of dusting all the pictures in the temple. It was a small task, but as I cleaned pictures of Christ and pondered on His life, I started to think about the temples significance in the Atonement.  Before we enter the temple, we do all we can to be clean and worthy to go, and then when we enter in, we make promises to use Christ's Atonement for the rest of our lives essentially. The temple reminds me of a forgiven person; clean and pure. I remembered a time when I thought I couldn't be forgiven of the things I had done wrong, that I was out of reach of The Atonement. I think Elder Grew put it best when he said:

To think you are outside of the forgiving power of Christ's Atonement is what I believe to be the biggest lie we can tell ourselves. Hope is never lost. I know that when we repent, we will always be forgiven if we show a willing heart and a true desire to become better. There is no better feeling than forgiveness.

One scripture that has always touched me is found in D+C section 6. Its very short, but very important to remember. In verse 6 it says, "Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not." It is very easy sometimes to forget we don't have to go through this life alone. I know that when I came home from my mission I felt like I owed it to God to just figure it out on my own, I mean he ha just spend the past 18 months trying to perfect me. But the truth is, we can't do anything without him. We can sure try, and we will often make mistakes along the way, but his arms are always stretched out, waiting to receive us again. He sent us His Son so we could receive a fresh start when we want it.

I know that Christ lives. I know that He loves us. And I know that my life would be completely different if I didn't know about him. I hope my thoughts about his greatest miracle, The Atonement, will help someone who needs them.