Atonement, Depression, and Me

Maddie and Samantha stayed home from school the other day because they were "sick."  I had them spend the day in their bedroom.  I think they had more fun than I realized they would have.  With Legos, Paper Dolls, and lots of Stuffed Animals they were quite entertained.

Last night was one of those nights.  The greatest blessing is that Derek was there and helped me through it.  After dinner he could tell that I felt out of control and overwhelmed.  He held me while I cried, told me how wonderful I was, that he loved me, that I haven't done anything wrong, and that he is not disappointed in me.  He then did the dishes and I went upstairs and read a talk given by Elder Holland entitled "The Atonement and Missionary Work."  It was so sweet to read the words he spoke and to feel the love of my Savior and Heavenly Father.  The talk was addressed to missionaries but I applied the words to me and my depression and really got a lot of the comfort and support I needed.

“Anyone . . . will have occasion to ask, why is this so hard? Why doesn't it go better? Why can't our success be more rapid? . . . Salvation is not a cheap experience.  Salvation was never easy . . . why would we think, that it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him?  In turn, how could we possible bear any moving, lasting testimony of the Atonement if we have never known or felt anything of such an experience? . . . you must be prepared to walk something of the path He walked, to feel something of the pain He felt . . . to shed one of the tears of sorrow that He shed.”

How can we understand the Atonement if we have never suffered?  If life were easy we could not appreciate the Atonement.  As we suffer we are more grateful and empathetic to His suffering.  It is then easier to turn to Him.  Suffering for our pain, knowing He has felt it gives us a stronger bond with Christ.  A better unity of hearts and minds.

“Now please don’t misunderstand.  I’m not saying you have to look for suffering, and I’m not saying that we experience anything anywhere near what Christ experienced.  That would be presumptuous and frankly, sacrilegious.  But I believe that missionaries and investigators to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to come to repentance, to come to know something of the price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price—it will only be a token, but I believe it has to be paid.  I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness in the Church is.  I believe it is supposed to require something of our soul.  If Jesus could plead in the night, falling on His face, bleeding from every pore and crying, “Abba, Father, [Papa], . . .[remove] this cup from me” (Mark 14:36).  Well little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or “easy” thing for a missionary.  This is the living Son of the Living God saying, “Isn’t there some other way?”  So, presidents, if your missionaries wonder why this isn’t easy, they should remember they are not the first ones to ask that.  Someone a lot greater and a lot better asked it a long time ago.  He asked if there were not a less excruciating way—and for Him, there wasn’t.  So, perhaps, for us in token and symbolism, there won’t be an entirely easy was either.”

I love Pres. Holland.  He has such an amazing understanding and love for the Atonement and always helps me see it better and understand it better and love my Savior more because of what he teaches me.  The following paragraph was again addressed to the missionaries but I have taken the liberty to change it to apply to my life:

“. . . if [I can] come to love and appreciate it, the atonement will carry [me] . . .  When [I] struggle, when [I am] rejected, when [I am] spit upon, and cast out [by depression] and made a byword, [that I am] standing shoulder to shoulder with the best life this world has ever know, the only pure and perfect [person] that ever lived.  [I] have every reason to stand tall and to be grateful that the Savior and Redeemer of the world knows all about [my] sorrows and [my] afflictions and that for a moment or two in [my life I] will understand what He went through for [me.]  The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane.  The only victory is the victory at the summit of Calvary.  Welcome to the journey of the disciples of Christ.”

This brings me comfort and hope.  To know that I am not alone in my suffering and also not alone in my desire for an easier way.  Knowing Christ asked if there was another way makes Him more approachable and more understanding of what I feel.

Taken from a talk given by Elder Holland entitled The Atonement and Missionary Work, given at a Seminar for New Mission Presidents, June 2007.  My mother gave me a collections of talks on the Atonement put together by her mission president Robert E. Chambers in 2014.  This talk is included in this collection.  I did find a portion of this talk in the March 2001 Ensign. Empasis added.