Pain. Grief. Atonement

As Parents we hear that new little cry, we pick them up, cuddle them, feed them, change their diapers and they coo and smile and all is well.
As they get older they fall, scratch their knees, elbows, get sick. We mend their scrapes with band aids and kisses. We treat their fevers, feed their ailing bodies. They heal, smile and resume their play.
Then the teens set in and some of their pain comes from hurt feelings from friends, sometimes nasty gossip, a friend turns away from the gospel. Still they come to us and we nurture their hurt feelings..teach them how to handle nasty gossip, teach them to fast and pray for their friends. It takes a little longer, but they heal, smile, resume their play.
Then they are older and life seems good but then here is another bump, ditch or grand canyon that comes before them. A loved ones dies..our hopes and dreams and desires for our earthly life seem dead and gone. How do I move forward? Another tragedy comes our way and again where are our hopes and dreams? All they feel like doing is crying their loss or the loss of someone that they have loved. The loss doesn’t have to be in death…is could be any type of loss. A loss is a loss either way and you find your dreams shattered. You can’t see passed this hour, this day, this week…you can’t see next year. You live in the now and you cry.
Then you remember the visiting teaching or home teaching message that you just taught: This is the Visiting Teaching message I shared on Wednesday not knowing what deeper meaning it would hold for me exactly 24 hours later. "Burdens provide opportunities to practice virtues that contribute to eventual perfection. They invite is to yield 'to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and put off the natural man and become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and become as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon us, even as a child doth submit to his father.' Thus burdens become blessings, though often such blessings are well disguised and may require time, effort, and faith to accept and understand."

"Further, bearing up under our own burdens can help us develop a reservoir of empathy for the problems others face." I now have "developed a reservoir of empathy" for others who have been in or will be in my situation.
You cry some more because you want and need to understand but it doesn’t come. As a parent we cannot mend this hurt, we cannot kiss the scraps and scratches, tend the fever and make things better. Now our roles have changed. Now we really learn to listen. And listen some more. Cry with them, cry for them. Pray, fast, hope.
And then you receive this text from someone you have loved all your life and they say: I’m suffering because I care to much and along with my own pain I feel like I’m suffering for my friends pain.
Then I think of D & C 122. My most favorite of all scriptures. Christ is reminding Joseph Smith of all the he is suffering while in Liberty Jail. And then Christ says: The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than He?
Then I am reminded of the suffering that Christ did for all of us in the garden of Gethsemene. He took upon himself all of our sins, suffered for them. He alone knows how to help those we love who are hurting. He knows their pain. He loved us all so much that He suffered so much so that we would have a chance to live with him some day.
The pain we feel today is no measure for the joy we will feel in the eternities. He knows that we will suffer today but he alone can ease the suffering. He alone can make us stronger and more prepared to live with Him again We must learn to turn our hearts to him.