FHE Lesson 10/19/09

How the Atonement can help us prepare spiritually for the second coming

I recently finished reading The Peacegiver by James L. Ferrell. I recommend it. I can’t recite the book or even tell you what it’s about; I can only tell what I learned from it and how I feel it applies to my life.

In my preparation for this lesson, I thought about my own experience with the Atonement, how I have felt its effects in my life. I thought of one aspect of my life where the Atonement has been very necessary, especially in recent times.

I want to preface this by admitting that this is an area of my life that I am still very sensitive about, an area that I admit to being insecure about, and an area that I don’t talk openly about with people I don’t know very well.

I choose to relate my experience because I believe the best lessons/talks I have listened to have been ones that speak from personal experience rather than any recent research done in preparation for the lesson/talk.

I also felt inspired to speak very personally in the hopes that it would not only offer more toward my own healing process but perhaps might reach out to those of you who may be struggling or who have struggled in the past to allow the Atonement to work in your life as well.

22 years ago, my parents separated and divorced. Some very ugly things were said and done by both parties in the heat of such an ugly situation; ugly things that caused us, their children, much pain and suffering; ugly things that unfortunately continue presently. The ugliest thing was the actual tragedy of divorce:
· Not having our parents together
· Not having our father there every day to prove himself as a father, to raise us, to have influence on us as a good father should

I was very angry that my father was gone. I of course was not old enough to understand at the time.

I am sorry to say that it took many years for me to forgive my mother. I was able to find that forgiveness in my teens, after I had made some very sad choices in my own life. It was not these sad choices that helped me find this forgiveness but rather my mother’s reaction to those choices and her reaction to me. She was given the opportunity to prove herself as a mother and she did prove herself and then some. It’s very easy to forgive someone when they are given the opportunity to make up for their mistakes and then they take that opportunity and exceed expectations.

Unfortunately my father has never been given this opportunity. He remarried shortly after he and my mother divorced and then in turn, they moved to Las Vegas and essentially started a new life. I distinctly remember my eight-year-old heart breaking at that point, for the first time that I can logically comprehend what a breaking heart feels like. I felt abandoned, replaced, cheated; among other very negative feelings, as a result of my parents’ divorce. I admit with some apprehension that I still struggle with these insecurities today; they still impact me.

I understood very soon after my parents had divorced actually why they had divorced. It was apparent to me, even at a very young age, that they simply weren’t compatible and had married when they were far too young and immature to understand the full impact of their decisions. As I grew older, I also started to understand and consider what my father must have faced, and continues to face, in losing his family so many years ago. I can honestly really only even begin to imagine the anguish he experienced. It’s impossible for me to really understand because my perspective of the situation was so different, being a child. Unfortunately my understanding and consideration of my father’s feelings really had little impact on me because I was so consumed with my own grief and suffering. I selfishly thought, to a certain degree, that his feelings were irrelevant and didn’t matter because he had made his choices. For him to suffer as a result of his choices was a natural consequence; for me to have to suffer as what I felt was an innocent victim was completely unfair, unjustified, and at times unbearable for me. At times, I felt like he deserved to hurt, deserved to be punished for abandoning me and my brothers.

As I matured and my testimony of the Gospel strengthened, I started to realize how important a relationship with my father was; how important it was to my life, to my eternal progression, and to my future marriage. This is not to say that a relationship with one’s father is this imperative to everyone but it certainly was for me.

I felt (and still currently feel) that there were and are many things that I either needed to overcome or accept (or maybe both) in order for me to have healthy psychological well-being and to continue to progress spiritually. I found this to be a very difficult task. I normally consider myself to be a rather strong person emotionally but yet, I couldn’t (and still can’t) even speak to my father about this situation and my feelings about it without completely losing control emotionally and becoming abnormally sensitive and insecure toward him. I hate that he sees me this way. I wish he could see the strength with which I normally approach difficult circumstances in my life.

I realized some time ago that we really don’t know each other at all. He probably sees me as an emotional train wreck. I see him as a bull in a China cabinet, continuing to tear open a 20+ year old wound that just won’t heal. I’m starting to recognize, in recent times, why it won’t heal; why my heart is still broken after all these years and why I just can’t seem to get a grip on this situation and get on with my life.

I have had years of failed personal attempts at a better relationship with my father. The reason why all of my attempts have failed are many.

I have been selfishly hanging on to the notion that only my feelings were justified because I was the innocent victim. One cannot heal from the emotional tragedies in this life that are the result of someone else’s decisions until they can see the pain and suffering of that other person as something real and as something that deserves just as much attention and understanding as our feelings do. This is a tough thing to do; to think of the person who has caused us pain and suffering in such a compassionate way; to see that person as our Heavenly Father sees them…that is so difficult when there are so many hurt feelings involved. It is so difficult when we’re so consumed with our own grief.

It is truly a Christ-like attribute, an attribute that will truly help us prepare spiritually for the second coming, to be able to set aside our own feelings of pain and suffering and consider with compassion the pain and suffering of those who we feel have wronged us. The first thing I think about when I hear something like this is HOW? How does one get to this place? How does one go about accomplishing this? A different perspective is what has been helping me to work toward this. When the Savior went through Gethsemane He didn’t just suffer for your weaknesses alone or only for what you might suffer in this life; He went through all of the anguish and pain for those who would wrong us in our lives as well. In fact, this is exactly WHY the Savior suffered as He did. The Atonement is truly all encompassing and covers for the guilty as well as the innocent. Who are we to judge whether or not someone else is worthy or deserving of the power of the Atonement?? Are we really that narcissistic that we would have Christ’s suffering made null and void for another simply because they have hurt or offended us?

We must also remember that our feelings and the feelings of others are neither right nor wrong; they are just that, feelings. We cannot control what others do or feel nor do we have the right to tell someone that their feelings are wrong or bad. We are all entitled to our feelings no matter how those feelings might impact others. This is one of God’s greatest gifts to us; freedom. We must respect that we all have that freedom.

Another reason why my attempts at a better relationship with my father have failed is that my expectations have been too high at times. Having unrealistic expectations of those around us will always leave us feeling cheated, unfulfilled, and hurt. Bringing my expectations to a more realistic level will help me to be grateful for what the situation is and for what I have with my father, instead of feeling angry and bitter for what it’s not.

It is taking me longer than I feel comfortable admitting to accept that my father is who he is and that no amount of obsessing over the situation will change who he is. I am certain that he is more aware of his weaknesses than anyone. Is it really my place to point out those weaknesses and constantly seek out the negative in him?

It is truly a Christ-like attribute that will help us in our preparation for the second coming when we accept and look past the struggles that each individual has and see only the positive in that person. By doing so, I believe they actually become a better person; or at least they become a better person from our point of view.

Everyone moves along in life at a different pace; not everyone is ready to face certain situations simply because we are ready. It is unrealistic and unfair for us to expect things of people who are not ready to give those things. Also, not everyone is ready to forgive or to ask for forgiveness simply because we feel ready. We must respect and accept that. Luckily the Atonement covers for this as well however.

It is truly another Christ-like attribute, and one that will help us prepare spiritually for the second coming, for a person to ask for forgiveness from another and then continue to feel that penitence when the other party has not accepted the apology. It is also truly Christ-like to forgive before we are asked to do so and it is especially Christ-like if we are never asked for that forgiveness and yet we still forgive.

I feel that by far, the principal reason why my attempts at a better relationship with my father have failed in the past is because there are certain situations, certain challenges that we face in this life that require more than our best efforts. There are certain situations that require something that many of us just are not able to give or at least find it incredibly difficult to give. There are those situations in this life that are so painful to us, so life altering, so traumatic that the only thing left that will provide the necessary healing for us is to let everything go; all of the pain, bitterness, hurt, negativity; even all of the over-analyzing, obsessing, and torment; the grip that it has on us, the ability it has to cause us pain. We must put it upon the Savior and actually allow the Atonement to make our burdens light, to make us whole again. The Savior and His Atonement are the end-all and catch-all. They are the only thing that can and will provide us with the true release that we seek and that we so desperately need in our lives. When we find this ability within us to let it all go, that is when we will be able to put our own feelings aside and compassionately consider the feelings of those who we feel have wronged us; we will be able to recognize that the people we feel have wronged us are still just as worthy and deserving of the saving power of the Atonement as we are; we will be able to overcome and accept the things of this life that we have little or no control over; we will be able to bring our expectations more in line with reality and look past the struggles and weaknesses of others; we will be able to ask for forgiveness and find forgiveness more readily in our hearts and subsequently find that our broken heart is being wonderfully mended as only the Savior and His Atonement is capable of doing.