The Atonement

The things that have happened over this past week have caused me to reflect a lot on the Gospel and the Atonement.  I'd like to share a few of my thoughts.



I've worked through some things, personally. Things are going to work out.


Don't go changing ... I love you just the way you are ...


So with all that's happened the last few days, our family has been focusing a lot on charity and love and letting everyone know that we need to accept ourselves and know we are fine just the way we are. We don't need to change - we are fine.

Our family is very ... um ... high-achieving, to put it lightly (betcha couldn't tell THAT from knowing me for a little while, right? Right?! LOL.) All of us have a strong desire to be good, a strong desire to help people, a strong desire to love others, a strong desire to be like Christ and follow Him. But I think sometimes we mix up being like Christ (ie. having charity) with being Christ and feeling a compulsion to save people. I don't mean "save people" in a strictly missionary, "Make people Mormon and thereby save them." I mean, "Help people out when they're in trouble all the time and always put others above ourselves and our emotional needs." Some of those who knew me in high school and knew some of the things I struggled with ... well, come to think of it, yeah, I definitely had that problem.

My friend Jessica told me I could never be a psychologist/therapist/psychiatrist because I'm too empathetic and too sensitive and I would make all of my patients' problems my own and I would get really depressed if there was someone I could not help or someone who ended up killing themselves. It's true. I love to help people, I love to listen, I love to play the part of counselor, but emotionally I couldn't do it for a living. It would destroy me, emotionally, because I am too sensitive.

My Dad's been teaching Sunday School classes in church for a long time. He was the Gospel Doctrine teacher for a long time, and now he's a "ward missionary" and teaches the "Gospel Principles" class. Basically, it's the "basic LDS Doctrine" class for people who are either investigating the Church or coming back into activity after not coming to Church for a long time and need a refresher course on the basic things the Church really teaches. Because sometimes after a long time of studying stuff (there's 4 years' worth of Sunday School lessons) you might start to get caught up in weird things and obscure issues and forget the basics, what you really know, the principles you really need to know and understand to be able to follow Christ and trust him. Sometimes we reach a point where we start trusting ourselves too much and forget Christ is there for us, so we get overwhelmed with all the things we feel we have to do and we get stressed out...

Anyway. So Dad was supposed to teach his class on Sunday, but nobody came except for me and his Mom and a guy whose family recently joined the Church. So Dad got to turn it into a, "This is my favorite thing to talk about about the Gospel" sort of lesson. His favorite thing to talk about is what it is "to be saved". And he focuses on the phrase, "Believe in Christ" and how the word "believe" in the Scriptures refers to a word (in whatever language that scripture was written in) emphasizes faith and how that faith encourages action, and that's how Mormons end up with the "faith and works" thing. But then some Mormons overemphasize "works" and forget about Grace and how Christ makes up the difference where we fall short and we have MERCY that allows us to be whole.

We don't have to feel like crap because we're not perfect. We have Christ and His Atonement, and that Atonement makes up the difference. We don't have to save ourselves because Christ did it for us. Remember that, remember that, remember that.

And as we soften our hearts and decide we want to be like Christ, we offer Him and our Heavenly Father our broken hearts and contrite spirits and ... you know ... follow them. Strive to be like them. Pray. Develop faith. Be baptized. Receive the Holy Ghost. Listen to the Holy Ghost (also the Spirit or the Holy Spirit or whatever you want to call it) and its promptings and you know what? When we reach that point - following Christ, living by faith, listening to the Spirit - we have a lot of peace in our lives and the Lord can tell us what to do if we don't know what we ought to be doing and we can be instruments in His hands to serve others. But it just happens naturally and we don't always necessarily need to, like, "be told by God what to do all the time." We naturally want to be good, so we're going to go around doing good things, and when we reach a point where we're feeling doubt or uncertainty, we can pray to God and be like, "Okay, I'm feeling unsure of myself right now, what should I do?" and we can say, "Should we do this?" and God can give us reassurance and say, "Hey, yeah, love, that sounds like a great idea. Go ahead and do it." or he can warn us away from an action and say, "This makes you feel uncomfortable. Why don't you do something else?" or offer us a specific alternative.

Isn't the guidance of the Spirit awesome?

And the great thing is, everyone can have it. We believe everyone has the light of Christ (kind of also described as our conscience) but when we get baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost we receive the right to be able to ask God for direction and receive inspiration from the Holy Ghost. Honestly, I couldn't make up a better religion and a more comforting 'explanation' for the gifts of peace, intuition, and insight. If you're a non-religious type, that's kind of what I'm describing, isn't it?

Mark and I like to read fantasy and Mark really enjoys role-playing and designing systems and designing magic systems and religious systems and figuring out how different cultures might describe different kinds of spiritual phenomenon. It's kind of cool, and causes me to reflect a lot on my own religious beliefs and maybe why I choose to believe them over not. Because, yeah, to those who are atheist or non-religious or non-spiritual at all, religion and spirituality doesn't make sense and seems ridiculous. But for those who do believe - in anything - faith is a grounding rock and a pillar of strength.



Um, so yes.

Lesson of the day is, charity and love is what's important. Sometimes I'm focusing so much on, "love thy neighbor" I forget that the second half of it is "as thyself". Not more than. Just as. So it is every bit as important that we take care of ourselves and recognize our needs as it is to recognize others' needs. "Bear one another's burdens" ... not "bear everyone else's burdens for them." That's what Christ is for. He asked us to take his yoke upon us (because His yoke is easy an His burden is light) and to cast upon Him our every care. Not cast upon ourselves everyone else's cares and take care of them. Yes we can bear one another's burdens but we also have Christ there to make up the difference. It is not our job to be Christ.

But Mormons tend to be so high-achieving and ambitious and everything that we sometimes forget that very, very, VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY important principle.

I can, I can, I can, I can, I can,
I matter, I matter, I matter, I matter.


We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us and we love Him ...
STOP. THAT IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT.


I love you, Marissa.