Pain and Suffering

During my therapy session with Julie this week we talked about the purpose and power of pain and affliction in our mortal experience. My heart was touched by many of the conference talks today, especially Elder Kent F. Richards in the morning session. He talked about much of what Julie and I did this past week. These are a few thoughts about some things I learned. 

Pain brings power and potential. The foundation of God's perfect plan of happiness is opposition in all things, including our spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical being. Through the gift of opposition, blessings of compassion, empathy, and sensitivity develop. Feeling sorrow, failure, and enmity brings greater capacity to feel joy, accomplishment, and love. 

 

The structure of opposition is outlined in 2 Nephi 2: 11-13:  

11For it must needs be, that there is an aopposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.  

12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.  

13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.  

Elder Richards taught that suffering administers to our mortal "education," a means whereby we can discover our true potential. Through suffering and pain experiences, we bow in humility before our maker. These learning experiences provide opportunities to develop Godlike qualities in ways that would otherwise not be possible. Pain and suffering are part of His "refiner's fire," purifying our character into His perfect creation. As Elder Richard explains, it is through suffering we are refined to be as precious as gold. "For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (I Nephi 20:10).    

As we experience pain and suffering, the Savior does not stand back as a "silent observer." Throughout His mortal and eternal ministry Christ sanctioned endless blessings to all men. His healing was unconditional, reaching out with open arms as on the cross to all mankind. "And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12).   

Through His infinite love, our pain and suffering are lifted even though our mortal circumstances may not immediately change. His "yoke is easy and His burden is light" because He is there with us. The Savior brings peace and solace in the midst of our pain. 

Healing comes through His divine spirit and heaven's surrounding angels. During the longest nights and darkest storms, God's angels of light have surrounded me with arms of comfort, peaceful prayers, and uplifting dreams. Especially when I first admitted to the Center for Change, I remember many distinct impressions of my guardian angel, Grandpa White, strengthening and comforting me. Sometimes it was a warm feeling in my hand as if he was holding it. Other times it was soft arms wrapped around me during a lonely, dark night. Most often it was a whisper of courage to fight, as it continues today. After all, I am the linage of the "toughest kid on the block." How grateful I am for His divine angels of light.  

One of my favorite talks is by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Ministry of Angels. In this sermon, he describes angels as: "Usually such beings are not seen. Sometimes they are. But seen or unseen they are always near. Sometimes their assignments are very grand and have significance for the whole world. Sometimes the messages are more private. Occasionally the angelic purpose is to warn. that the pmost often it is to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, guidance in difficult times. When in Lehi’s dream he found himself in a frightening place, “a dark and dreary waste,” as he described it, he was met by an angel, “a man … dressed in a white robe; … he spake unto me,” Lehi said, “and bade me follow him.” Lehi did follow him to safety and ultimately to the path of salvation. In the course of life all of us spend time in “dark and dreary” places, wildernesses, circumstances of sorrow or fear or discouragement." Yet the Savior promises, “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, … my Spirit shall be in your [heart], and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (D&C 88: 84)  

My heart is filled with deep gratitude for the blessings of pain and suffering. I feel abundantly blessed with angels, power, and divinity through His eternal gifts of love. Life's challenges bring eternal and endless blessings of light - sprinkles of pixie dust!