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.
(Chieko N. Okazaki, Lighten Up, Preface, p. 174)
