Monday Gospel Musings: My Testimony of the Atonement of Christ

Monday Gospel Musings: My Testimony of the Atonement

picture from www.lds.org

It being the week before Easter I've been thinking a lot about what I want do to help make this Easter more meaningful. Don't get me wrong, I love dying eggs with the kids and seeing them bite the ears off their chocolate bunnies but there is so much more to it than that and I feel like I would be failing as a mother if I didn’t at least try to help my children understand that as well. Since I really don't have any profound thoughts on how to approach it I think I'll stick with my testimony of it.

I wasn't there in Jerusalem. I never met the Savior. Still I know without a doubt that a little less than 2,000 years ago in that ancient Garden in someway that is completely unfathomable He was thinking of me. He saw and felt all of my sins and all of my pains. He knelt there and made a bargain with Our Father that He would succor me through my trials and if I would repent He would wash away all of my sins so I would have the blessing of being able to return to live with Him again. I mattered to Him. I still matter to Him.

I think it's something that I really struggle with, knowing that someone as perfect and good as Christ could care anything about, much less love someone like me who was so imperfect, still I know that it's true. He's been true to those covenants that He made there. I've felt His love for me and had it confirmed in so many ways great and small. I've felt Him comfort me when I could not bear the trial I'd been given on my own. I've felt His great love as he looked down on me in all my mortal failings and said "Thy Sins are forgiven thee" "Go and Sin no more".

I know in this life I'll never really be able to understand what happened there, and I don't really have to. I just have to remember that He loves me and will always love me. No matter what happens I can trust in His redeeming love and know that it'll be okay.

The most amazing part is that even though this was such an amazingly personal experience between Christ and me that it wasn't just for me. It was for my husband, my children, my friends, my neighbors, and strangers halfway around the world that I'll never even have the chance to meet. He loves them in that same unconditional and unfathomable way too. Perhaps if we all understood this love just a little more we would have more love for one another and be able to get past some of the hate that seems to be so prevalent in the world today.

So I guess that's my goal once again this Easter, to try to love more- to love myself, to love those around me. To love as Christ did, with all that I have to give.