The look on her face nearly broke my heart. Probably because I felt like I understood her. On one couch was a sister missionary overwhelmed with expectations she now believed were unfulfilled. In a moment of stress, she had vocalized suicidal thoughts to her trainer. The mission had decided to send her home with an official escort. She didn’t have a choice. Even if she didn’t mean what she said.
On the opposite couch
was me. A sister who hadn’t vocalized those thoughts, but they had come and
gone in a similar vein. But keeping them to myself, I was allowed to stay. The
difference between us, however, seemed infinitesimal.
Living in the same area
as the Mission President, my companion and I volunteered to take the sister out
for her last few days in the field. I felt like she needed to talk, and I
wanted to let her. After we worked for much of the day, we went home and I
asked her questions and let her tell me everything.
That’s when I learned
that her real fear wasn’t anything from the mission. Her fear was going home
broken. She told me that in her home ward she was viewed as a stellar young
woman and spiritual example. Everyone believed in her. She told me she hadn’t
really meant what she had said about ending her own life. The stress of the
mission had seemed unbearable, but she hadn’t ever thought of herself as
someone with any emotional problems. The new label was almost incomprehensible
to her view of herself. But in the course of the discussion, I watched her
countenance change as she began to define herself by the label implied in the
situation.
“I must be crazy,” she
noted with a little too much honesty mixed in with the sarcasm. “That’s what
they think of me.” There was bitterness but also belief. The more we talked,
the more I realized she was beginning to doubt her own stability. She began to
doubt if she was good enough. Perhaps she thought that as a missionary, she was
just a failure. Maybe she feared she was as person as well. But it wasn’t true.
I knew that because I was staying. It didn’t make any sense, considering how
much we thought about things the same, but I was staying on my mission. And in
a moment of passion, I declared.
“It’s not weak to be
weak, Sister.”
I told her to study more
about the Atonement. In my letter home that week, I ranted about the need to be
more merciful and compassionate and then referred to Elder Holland’s talk,
“Like a Broken Vessel.” I then wrote:
I think we are all
broken… A broken
vessel can become a chosen vessel. But it requires another. We all need the
Savior, Jesus Christ.
Now, flash forward
another ten months.
I can smell the stench
of alcohol coming from his breath. It becomes a familiar smell after so many
visits. It’s possible to find him sober, but it’s also rare. Even when he’s
coherent, I doubt that he’s completely sober. But his love of learning is real.
And his eagerness to understand his identity is even stronger.
“I had a dream about the
preexistence,” he tells us in one visit. And after describing the beauty and
joy of being a spirit in the presence of God, he asks the piercing question –
“Why would I choose to leave the God I love to come to a place like this?”
A powerful question in
its own right, and worthy of discussion, it was joined by another – this one
full of frustration as this 43-year old alcoholic whose family had left him
desperately grasped for relief from his perceived worthlessness in what he saw
as a failed attempt at life.
“Girls, look at me. Look
at my life. My wife has left me. She took the child. I’m worthless. So, I just
don’t understand, why do you keep coming back?”
I remember having the
impression that he didn't understand the Atonement. And he wasn't alone in his
perception. He wasn't alone in his situation either.
"Are we not all
beggars?"[1] was
the phrase coined by King Benjamin in his famous discourse to his people. I
would change it to “Are we not all broken?” Indeed, in some respect or another,
we probably all are. But that makes no dent, impression, or difference in the
grand scheme of eternity. Because in that same pre-existent world that my
investigator glimpsed in a dream, we decided on a plan. It was a plan of
salvation, whereby we mortals who by nature would fall, or break, or make
mistakes, would be provided a source of healing, a possible redemption from
sin, a cure or “balm in Gilead.[2]”
The Savior Jesus Christ was chosen to sacrifice not only for our sins, but as a
way to succor us in our infirmities. And that meant, He wasn’t surprised by any
of them – weakness, mistakes, brokenness or sin. Was it not the Savior that
said, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick[3]"?
I have heard some accuse
the LDS church as being obsessed with “disability culture,” the idea that there
is something wrong with people who are different. The culture appears to turn
certain differences into a matter of rightness or wrongness. As often is the
case with labels, this may create an “us” vs. “them” mentality that can be
toxic to any process of learning or healing. As a response, I’ve heard many
talk about how we need to drift away from the idea of brokenness, the danger of
making people feel like they are outside the norm, different, wrong, or
insufficient.
I think in some ways I
resonate with those ideas. In my email home to my family after talking with the
sister who had confessed to suicidal thoughts, I was certainly frustrated with
what I felt was a culture of shame in the church that led suffering individuals
into a sort of self-loathing rather than self-healing.
However, I personally don’t
think the cure is to deconstruct the idea of being broken or to do away with
the possibility that we actually might need to be fixed. If we want to rid
ourselves of a culture of shaming, the answer isn’t to likewise rid ourselves
of the need for progression and change. On the contrary, it’s to perhaps come
to a recognition of the great equalizer of humanity – we are all, in fact,
broken. But lest we turn this into a mantra of discouragement, may I add that
we are all, in fact, capable of divinity and perfection.
A friend of mine once
made the observation that it is a part of our mortal condition to be imperfect.
This is true. We came as Spirit children of Heavenly Father to earth in order
to gain physical bodies and develop the attributes of Godhood.
Can you really imagine
that? What an incredible learning curve that makes!
We had no idea what
pain, hunger, lust, or any other physical impulses felt like. But now, we must
manage them all. We didn’t have the experience of child-bearing, or working, or
raising a family. There was no fear of illness, suffering, or I even think
emotional or mental illnesses stemming from chemical imbalances in a physical
brain that we didn’t have!
Pure knowledge was
limited to what could be learned in a pre-mortal classroom, without any
experience to solidify or even apply our newly gained knowledge. We were by nature
weak, despite our determination to become like God. We had a long way to go—and
by the very laws of nature—a lot of things to experience and even suffer. To
know the good in a way that meant familiarity, joy, recognition, and
understanding, we needed to taste the bitter.
There is no way in
which, by any stretch of the imagination, we could have found ourselves walking
through this mortal experience without any mistakes, missteps, set-backs,
sadness, loss, or without the absolute need for help. We couldn’t expect to become
like God alone.
That’s why I like to
imagine that when the council in Heaven was being carried out – when Christ
stepped forth to volunteer to be the Savior of the world – it was done because
every single person in attendance understand one simple thing: Mortal life is a
broken, corrupt, imperfect, incomplete life. To go from the natural man to a
spiritual man – to go from mere mortal to God – would require another. It
required power from a God who had already completed the process for Himself. It
required the power and sacrifice of the one being who would actually walk
through the mortal world without misstep of any kind. But even He, if His grace
was to be perfect, would have to experience the fullest extent of bitterness in
order to know how to reach into the depth of our pain and pull us to the safety
of its opposite – the fullest extent of eternal joy.
When we accepted that
plan, we did so because it was the only way by which we could actually overcome
a mortally weak frame and access our eternal, spiritual nature in a process
perfected through Christ and His Atonement.
The short way to say
this is: We knew and accepted that we would be broken [4]. We did this
because we knew that it was the only way to also become perfect.
It should not be a debilitating
or depressing fact to be incapable, weak, or helpless. That was the intent and
purpose of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. John 3:17 is an interesting
scripture that follows the more famous declaration that God so loved the world
that He sent Christ to bring everlasting life. But it clarifies “For God sent
not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved.[5]”
There was no plan of
condemnation. There was only a plan of salvation. In context of the mortal
experience, that implies that the plan was to save us from our weaknesses on
condition that in mortal life we chose to accept that help and aid. But to
accept the Savior, we need to acknowledge first and foremost that we NEED him!
In simpler terms, we need to know that there is no shame or hindrance in the
fact that we are broken, as long as we are determined to look to and follow the
proper procedures to be made whole. That recognition is the stepping stone to a
path to perfection made possible through Jesus Christ.
There is no comparison
when it comes to human weakness. We’re all in the same boat. That doesn’t mean
we’ve all learned to understand one another’s weaknesses. It doesn’t mean that
we are always fully aware of how to begin addressing and overcoming our own
weaknesses, either. But if nothing else, it provides a full-proof equalizer for
all mortals.
“Are we not all
beggars?” I think so. Are we not also entirely dependent on the Savior for our
salvation? Absolutely.
This process of being
strengthened, healed, and perfected does not eliminate our personal
responsibility. Agency is preserved because God will force no man to heaven. To
be healed, like any mortal affliction, desires a willingness and determination
to follow the proper steps. But I do hope that, if nothing else, we can at
least not be ashamed of the fact that we need help.
I hope the stigma and
fear of being imperfect and incapable is replaced by an increased love for God
and gratitude for what the Atonement of Christ actually means. It perfects and
changes our very nature and our hearts. I hope that this makes us more
compassionate towards the people around us. And I hope that the tears we shed
in sorrow, shame, embarrassment, frustration, fear, and loss will be wiped away
as we come to experience the infinite love of a Savior and Heavenly Father who
already knew that we would fall in mortality but were determined to help us so
that it wouldn’t matter eternally.
I understand that every
mortal struggle is different. That every temptation, addiction, suffering,
illness, or sorrow varies and the mortal methods for dealing with them likewise
vary. But in terms of our spiritual progression, the doctrine of Christ boldly
and unequivocally declares that the source of salvation for every mortal
creature is Jesus Christ. His is the way, the true path.
It becomes
counter-productive, then, to judge or condemn ourselves mid-way through the
process. When we find ourselves backed against the wall, incapable, and
frustrated, the fact is that we are not alone. We are not hopeless or helpless.
We are actually mortal. It is not weak to be weak. It is not a problem to be
emotionally, physically, mentally, or perhaps even spiritually broken. It was
to that end that Heavenly Father’s plan included the offering of the Savior –
an infinite and eternal sacrifice for us. A cure for those who accept His plan
and follow in His footsteps.
The “whole need not a
physician, but they that are sick.”
In the next life, when
the mortal has been replaced by the immortal, the corrupt has become incorrupt,
and the Savior’s influence has “wrought a mighty change in us or in our hearts [6],”
the result is that we will actually become whole. No longer broken. Becoming perfect in Christ and like unto our
Heavenly Parents. That is beauty of the Plan of Salvation.
[4] “Lesson 2: The Plan of Salvation,”
Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. 2004.
[6] Mosiah 5:2, The Book of Mormon
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