Adversarial Combat

As Christ followed the Father under any circumstance, we should follow His Son. If we do so, it matters not what kind of persecution, suffering, grief, or “thorn in the flesh” we face. We are not alone. Christ will assist us. His tender mercies will make us mighty under any circumstance. - Walter F. González -

Mere mortals we who attempt to navigate our way through the storms of life and hope that our little ship of faith is durable enough to carry us aloft on the tempest tossed.

Sometimes the tossing of the waves swamps our ship of faith and smashes us to emotionally drained bits on the rocks of adversity and pain. Such are the present circumstances for some people whom I love with all of my heart.

Circumstances can be temporary or they can be a permanent "thorn in the flesh" from which we can pray and petition for relief throughout our mortal sojourn. We don't get to pick and choose our trials, if so, we could simply pray away the pain, the sorrow and the hurt that comes from the agony pressing in upon us during those times of trial and torment that only the Master can fully comprehend.

The Atonement is so meaningful to me in ways I hadn't contemplated before. We are taught from the time we are small children that we can pray for forgiveness of our sins and transgressions, repent of our poorly chosen actions and receive forgiveness through the Atonement of Christ.

What is lesser focused upon, but every bit as valuable and far reaching, are the deeply held blessings that come from that same Atonement to carry the burdens of life that are part of each individual Child of God's mortal trial. The sorrow and the ache deep within for the burdens we personally carry ... as well as the burdens we share with those whom we love, but for whom we are powerless to intervene other than with our tears and our prayers.

God sent His Only Begotten Son to heal the world and the entirety of creation from the effects of the fall of Adam. Surely that includes the brokenhearted and those wounded by the pricking of the thorns in the flesh that create disease, havoc and fear. After all, the Savior was prophesied to carry our sorrows and our griefs. Gethsemane was not all about sin.

As the blood dripped from every pore in the Savior's body, those healing drops were being poured upon us all for those times when we are helpless to change the trial of ourselves... or of another. His wounded and broken heart felt every heavy beat of our own as He suffered with us through every ache and pain that can only be endured and maybe never completely overcome in this life.

We are commanded to be perfect even as Christ is. But absent His Atonement to bear the full weight and measure of the agony of our souls for our issues and the issues of those whom we love, we couldn't possibly manage it alone. It is likened to someone who seeks the advice and counsel of a physician, then refuses the aid and comfort because they are in their own mind unworthy to be helped and healed.

Surely our greatest nemesis must be laughing at our distress during those times of confusion and darkness! It is in his best interest to keep us feeling that if we only did more on our own that we could be better, stronger and perfect in and of ourselves. That is the biggest lie Satan deals out... and combined with his favorite tool of discouragement, it creates a storm of confusion in our lives that shuts and locks the door to the only One who can truly heal us at all.

During the times of my greatest struggles, I have often felt so inadequate to the tasks of life that I have wished to be gone. Surely that emotion is felt by many who struggle. It is asking so much of us to continue in pain - either physical, emotional or spiritual or any combination of them all! The hurt is often so great and the weight of circumstance pressing in so closely is a smothering thing. Like gasping for air after being underwater, yet always just beneath the surface so no air is obtained, we keep soldiering on through our torment trying to "handle it alone" as if so doing makes us better or stronger or somehow more capable to the eyes of God yet failing miserably to handle it at all.

This was not EVER God's design for us!

We were never meant to be alone.

God placed Adam and Eve in the garden together so that they would have another living soul to help them each carry the burdens that would be placed upon them. Because God also knew that the time would come when they must choose to leave that paradisaical state, He planned for us to have a way to endure all that would come to pass upon this entire creation... the Savior. One who could and would redeem. One who would heal, One who would bind up the wounds with the healing Balm of Gilead. One who would weep with us when we weep and rejoice with us when we rejoice. In short, One who would Atone.

Fear is a tremendous enemy. It turns our hearts into a quivering mass of "what if's" and leaves our faith on the doorstep. Fear comes from worrying how our family will manage if we die from the malady that has afflicted our body or our mind or our soul. Fear comes from the struggle between desiring perfection and knowing that we fall so very short in every caption that we are overwhelmed with the pitiful struggle against self. Fear can keep us from looking up in faith and tells us we are not good enough to save. It tells us that we must be unworthy because our "thorn in the flesh" may never be removed, but simply endured. Fear makes us turn our back on the very people in mortality who are the mortal angels who can aid in our rescue. Fear makes us shun the love of those who desire more than anything to just hold us close and help us through our turmoil.

The devil most certainly has powerful weapons in his arsenal of violence against our eternal progression.

Sometimes, as the brokenhearted kneel to pray, heaven feels very distant. That is a feeling of loneliness and darkness akin to no other. The absence of the tether to God is so isolating! The sorrow of all that is to be borne is so very painful!

During those times, the Atonement of Christ provides the answer, though we may not see it until in retrospect. Into His very body, the piercing agony of our struggle has been indelibly stamped and scarred upon His very person and within His soul. He, even Jesus the Christ, bears the marks upon Himself of every wound, every hurt, every struggle and every moment of agony we have endured... yet His precious blood is the salve for them all.

Many times, I have prayed to have my own particular "thorns in the flesh" removed. The answer has painfully come time and again "No".

Though I often struggle to understand, God isn't cruel and Jesus isn't capricious. The world and those who refuse to honor God would have us burn down our own ship of faith to spite God, the truth is that we NEED our trials in order to become those whom God and Jesus call their "friends".  Sometimes truth hurts in ways that we cannot fathom and can scarcely endure alone.

Friends can carry the weight with you and sometimes they carry it for you. They weep when you weep over health circumstances, kids gone astray, family members who flounder in the darkness of emotional turmoil or whatever the agony is named with which a mortal Child of God struggles... they, God the Father and Jesus Christ, weep with us from the heavens and ache with us as the struggle continues through whatever timetable. They are mindful, they are close and they are there with us wrapping their arms around us to carry us through it... we are just not always attuned to their presence.

Many times when I have come out of a desperately trying circumstance, I can see the evidence of God's love for me. The invitation to sing in the Stake choir is often one of those evidences that God knows me and that I matter... the feelings of the Holy Spirit, of Christ and of God seem to come so much stronger through music than any other medium. The trials don't depart, but they are, in a measure, made easier to bear.

Jesus Christ knows us as individuals. He already knows and has felt all of our brokenness. He isn't shocked, disappointed or angry. This was all planned from the beginning... for each one of us to come here and through our mortal experiences make the choice to return with our battle scars from this part of our eternal journey. He is standing with His arms outstretched to receive us all one by one... the same way He has Atoned for us.

On that lonely night in Gethsemane as He poured out all that was pressing upon Him in His intercessory prayer to His Father and to Our Father, Jesus Christ had us in mind... one by one. It truly humbles me to think of my sinless Savior kneeling there and pleading with the Father for all of the trials my life would bring - each one taking full measure in His thoughts and emotions as Jesus knelt there for me.

Sometimes, that is hard to remember. Satan wants it to be hard. He wants to distance me from the only way that I can ever get back home. He wants me to give up just at the very moment when the greatest blessing could be mine for all eternity. Simply put, he is miserable and the only way he feels anything at all is by making every single Child of God feel the full measure of their personal life's misery as if we had to carry it all alone.

Thankfully, Jesus says otherwise. "Depart!". And Satan along with those who work for him must flee. They cannot endure the light of the Divine Presence of the Only Begotten of the Father.

During the darkness of those nights where I am spiritually alone with the weight of who I am versus who I should be, the enveloping presence of Christ comes... sometimes through prayer and sometimes through the priesthood blessings that I have begged to receive. Those feelings of total love and compassion are the only things that keep me from dying from the panic that surrounds me and the imperfection of self that overwhelms my soul.

Jesus knows that, because He has endured it for me and with me, hour by hour. He has willingly shed His blood for the agony of my soul. What a Brother He surely is! He not only is by me, but takes my place in harms' way bearing my stripes on His body.

I am thankful for family and friends in the gospel who likewise feel the majesty and grace that Jesus Christ has granted. They shore me up when I am feeling capsized and tempest tossed. They remind me of all that has been done for me and help me focus on something that brings temporary peace to my soul.

It is the same for others, too.

I don't have any answers for why we endure and struggle and suffer some of the things we do. Maybe it's part of what we agreed to take upon ourselves as a condition of mortality... for the privilege of coming here to receive the opportunity to have the good experiences that would come... we would be willing to accept those unpleasant things and hurtful things because our Elder Brother promised us that He would be there every step of the way, walking with us, carrying us when we were too wounded to go on, suffering, bleeding and dying for us one by one... and, with healing in His wings, rising on that third day to open the door for all of us to go home.

There is a way... and the path is often steep and rocky and thorny. But we are never alone. For that I can testify and I am truly indebted to my Savior. Upon His mercy, His grace and His Atonement I can call any time of the day or night.

I close with a poem shared with me during a particular time of great distress and agony in my own life. Though our prayers are our heartfelt communications with our Father, sometimes we tend to make our prayers more 'shopping list' than talking over our lives with our Father. I hope it will help anyone who needs it.

INTERRUPTED PRAYER

Today Dear Lord, I knelt to pray for one afflicted -
But paused with words unsaid
For I (in my limited wisdom) Had been about to ask,
As always, That the sick one be healed;
That all suffering cease In short,
That all should have 
A happy ending 
All the time.
Oh, dear Father, instead I give thanks
That Thou, (in Thine Infinite Wisdom)
Art able to Edit my prayers,
Lest, in my well-intentioned concern
I should shield those I love From the very trials
They may need To bring them Close To thee.

-- Teresa Spring --