"Shall I Falter, or Shall I Finish"

A few weeks ago, while visiting my grown children in Rexburg, I was driving home from Mikayla and Eden's stake conference when Shelby texted a long quote to Eden, who decided to read it aloud as we drove. It was by Sis. Chieko Okasaki, who I haven't always seen eye to eye with, but there are many people who I don't see eye to eye with that have valuably profound things to say. This particular quote was not light fare, in fact quite gritty, as Sis. Chieko can be, but the timing, my present circumstances, my prayers all seemed to be tuned to the topic at hand and it hit me with such force, that I reached our destination and sat in the car and wept. It wasn't pleasant to hear, It isn't pleasant to read, but sometimes life is just not pleasant and I needed to hear it that morning, and I need to remember it, so I'm recording it here:

"Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implications of that belief.

We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau.

He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism. Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, 'And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' (Matthew 28:20)

He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old.

He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that. He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections.

He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief. You know that people who live above a certain latitude and experience very long winter nights can become depressed and even suicidal, because something in our bodies requires whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day. Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world.

We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we'll open the door and let him."
I have a Visiting Teacher who not only thinks deeply, but seems wise beyond her years. It could be that she is highly educated, in a traditional sense, but she also has a spiritual maturity that inspires me. Every time she comes she says something profound that I need to hear. The week after hearing the previous quote, she and I were talking about the Atonement and she shared that she had spent so many years and so much effort trying diligently "not to sin", striving to be "perfectly" obedient--in effect not to need the atonement--that she had inadvertently disallowed the full effects and blessings of it's personal power in her own life. As she shared those personal reflections they resonated so completely in my soul, that I was transfixed! It was a moment of self discovery, realizing that I had been harboring the same deep flaw, without even realizing it until she verbalized it about herself. Described in words, out in the open, of course it sounds ridiculous and foolish, painful and wasteful, but nonetheless, I recognized me. Of course recognition isn't a cure, and I am now wrestling with trying to learn how to change a lifetime of behavior and false perception and get out of my own way, so that the Atonement's power and covering will be unimpeded in my life. Not an easy concept, and I struggle with it every single day, but I am slowly...SLOWLY...learning the difference between feeling forsaken, fostering fear and forging faith. 

My favorite passages of scripture, which have never changed since I was a teenager, but which continue to gain considerable, personal depth are in the Doctrine and Covenants, chapters 121-122. The poignancy, pain and peace have always spoken to me and continue to buoy me up during the most difficult times of my life. There is a treasure trove of wisdom packed in those two chapters, but I realized something in these last few weeks, that I have never really pondered before, at least not so profoundly. Feeling forsaken is not a state of loneliness reserved only for those who have lost their faith or lost their way. Joseph Smith experienced it, as did some of my greatest hero's. Many of those nearest and dearest to me have suffered through the feelings of spiritual abandonment. I have had my own causes to cry out, "Oh God, where art thou?", but of all the millions of people who have ever lived on this earth--and tried to do any good--only Christ  actually HAS been forsaken. As the second to last sacrifice of the Atonement, during the most agonizing undertaking of his life, when His spiritual exhaustion had reached it's peak, when he had given literally every personal thing he possessed, except life itself, all spiritual support, comfort and divine connection was withdrawn, though only for a brief, necessary moment, and He experienced the complete loss of the Spirit and the Father. He understands that as well. And in that most spiritually desolate of places, He also taught us what to do, in our own despair, as He continued to cry out to His Father...and finished His mission. I do not understand all of the reasons for our spiritual deserts, but I know we are not alone. We have been promised that no matter how deserted we feel, He will not fail us or forsake us. I believe Him. Pres. Monson has said, "Only the Master knows the depths of our trials, our pain, and our suffering. He alone offers us eternal peace in times of adversity. He alone touches our tortured souls with His comforting words: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ..may we have a commitment to our Heavenly Father that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives. We should not need to experience difficulties for us to remember Him, and we should not be driven to humility before giving Him our faith and trust.." But sometimes we do and sometimes we are and the question remains, "Shall I falter, or shall I finish?" I humbly suggest that we can do both. We will falter and we must finish.