Walking With Trials Through Gethsemane and Calvary
A year and a half ago Mallory stood at this very pulpit. My family of five sat in these very benches. We were a happy bunch. With our quirks and many weaknesses. Today 18 months later we are here once again, in a situation almost identical. Still a family of 5. We always have been and always will be. But I testify to you, that the Mallory that stands here today is no longer the Mallory that stood before you 18 months ago. My family of 5 is no longer the same that it was 18 months ago. Over the last eighteen months we have learned how to walk with the Savior. Our Trials have shaped, molded and transformed us.
This path of trials and challenges was anticipated and even carefully planned by our Heavenly Father. In the scriptures we read when the Earth was being created Heavenly Father said when He placed man on the earth, “we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.”[i]
I do not believe for one second that these eighteen months of intense pain, growing, and endurance were a coincidence, or a mistake, or unplanned. Yes we were placed on this earth to be tested. But we were NOT left in the dark. In fact Heavenly Father sent His only begotten son to us for a perfect example to mirror our lives after. And to pay the price for our mistakes when we just can’t seem to get it right. When we learn to see our heartache from his point of view, suddenly we have learned to walk by Christ’s side.
The Savior’s life was FILLED with miracle after miracle, and incredible experience after incredible experience. He spent His mission ministering, teaching, and loving each individual person. But many times we overlook, or fail to comprehend the intense personal trials, heartaches, and suffering Christ himself experienced while here on this Earth.
In the Book of Mormon in Mosiah, King Benjamin the prophet tells about the future coming and life of Christ, “For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.”[ii]
What a joyful and inspiring mission. Christ must have experienced great joy while ministering here on this earth. Another prophet, Lehi, in the Book of Mormon explains, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.”[iii]
King Benjamin continues to testify of the pain that Christ would experiment in his life. I imagine it equals the joy he felt during his ministry; “And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.”[iv]
My mission was also FILLED with miracle after miracle, incredible experience after incredible experience, and tender mercy after tender mercy. But as these scriptures show us, with my joy I had to experience equal pain, to be able to recognize that joy! If Christ, the Creator of the world, our Savior and Redeemer, the very Son of God had to pass through unimaginable sorrow, so must we experience even just a fraction of what He endured. So as I share some of my trials with you, please do not think for one second that I was not happy. I was able to experience more happiness because Heavenly Father loved me enough to cut me down.
After a short time of being in the mission field the first real and ground shaking trial hit me. It was in a time of peace, everything was just going right. We were finally having success in a difficult area and I was really beginning to love my temporary assignment to Arizona. It was as if nothing could go wrong. We were working one day, and had just gotten into the car when my mission President called. He asked me if I had a minute and if I was sitting. Up until this moment in my life I had always thought I was pretty strong. Turns out I didn’t know what strong was… yet.
He explained to me that my brother Riley was sick. They had found a tumor. My mind began to go blank and fuzzy. Telling myself over and over again that he was wrong. It probably wasn’t anything serious. Riley would be fine. After all, I was always the sick kid, he was my hulking, stalwart brother. He didn’t get sick. I began to cry “no, no, no” repeatedly into the phone.
My world was shaken. The next day I got to Skype with my family. They seemed so calm, and happy. How could they all be so sure? I had to be there. I convinced myself I had to be there. Then Riley showed strength I had never before seen in my little brother. He told me, “Stay, my battle is here and yours is there. I will fight here, if you will fight there.” I put on a brave face as my heart crumbled to pieces, I heard the words leave my mouth, “I will stay.”
That next week I spent countless hours in prayer. Every second, I was praying just to keep it together through the next appointment. I would find myself in tears various times a day, and on my knees even more. A constant state of terror and stress set over me. It felt like someone was gripping my heart and slowly twisting. After a few hair brained schemes to get home and still be a missionary and to no avail once again I found myself on my knees.
And this was the moment, when I began to understand that the Atonement of Jesus Christ doesn’t just kick in after we die, it covers us—ALWAYS. Brothers and Sisters, I testify to you, that the Lord visits his people in their afflictions. He weeps with us. That night I felt a peace come into me and a surety flood over me when there was not ground to be found. I swore, if I had reached out my hand, I would have touched Christ’s tear stained face.
As Latter-Day Saints we believe that the Atonement was completed in two specific events. The first being when Christ suffered in Gethsemane before His crucifixion on Calvary. In the Bible we read that Christ went to a garden called Gethsemane; it says, “he kneeled down and prayed. Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
“And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” [v]
In the scriptures Christ describes His pain while realizing the Atonement. He says, “Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter up, and shrink--
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.”[vi]
The preparations He talks about are explained in the Book of Mormon when Alma says, “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
“And he will take upon him death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
“Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance;”[vii]
In that Garden Christ took upon himself, and felt our pains, sicknesses, guilt, and sadness. He knows each of the sorrows we feel here. He did this for each of us individually. He knelt in the Garden and prayed for each one of us. He called out your name, and felt your deepest sorrows. So that one day, when you are in your own personal Gethsemane, being crushed by the weight of your sorrow, He could come and succor you. Because Jesus gave His all, He can comfort us in all our sorrows and wipe away all our tears[viii].
In the scripture I read earlier it said that Heavenly Father sent an angel to His Son while in his deepest agony. This is the love of the Father for each one of you. As He watched his beloved, perfect and spotless Son in the greatest agony EVER felt I believe that our faces came to his mind’s eye. Could Heavenly Father have stopped Christ’s suffering? Of course. Did he? No. because your face came into His mind, knowing that if Christ didn’t fulfill the Atonement our Father would lose us forever. So in a desperate and loving attempt to comfort His Only Begotten Son, God sent an angel. That night, as I knelt on my knees, in my Gethsemane, my Father sent me His Son.
After that night the trials never stopped. There were countless times, suffering from spiritual heartache, or intense physical pain coming from my own health issues when I exclaimed in fervent prayer, “Why Lord, when I have tried all my life to be good, why has this happened to me?” As my ability to walk lessened each day I began to feel like the Prophet Joseph when locked in a prison cell. I found solace in the answer that Heavenly Father gave to him:
“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderes, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
“The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? (…) fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”[ix]
Elder Holland said, “because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: “I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you]’”
Elder Holland pleas with us that we never reenact the scenes of Christ lonely betrayal as he faced the crucifixion. “He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His [path to Calvary] in our present day. May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. May we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.”[x]
The path to happiness, salvation, and exaltation ALWAYS walked through Gethsemane and Calvary. This year was NOT easy. It feels like my family and I have been through hell and back this year. But we have NEVER known such happiness. Truly when we give our all to the Lord, He can take care of everything else much better than we could have ever imagined. I returned to a family whose faith is unwavering. Whose hope in an uncertain future is unshakeable. And whose love for the savior is immense and overwhelming. We passed through a refiners fire and standing on the other side I can testify to you that it was worth it. I cannot promise you that your trials will go away or become easier. But I can promise that when we strive to walk side by side with Christ, He will wipe away every tear.
I ask anyone with doubts about a mission to listen to my story. Trust your Father in Heaven that He will take care of everything. I may have experienced great pain, but I have never known greater joy.
One day Christ will come unto me, I will have the opportunity to wet the marks in his hands and feet with my tears and kiss his face, and feel his embrace. But I will not know any more than I know now that Christ is the living Son of a Living God. That this is His Church upon the earth and that He lives today.
I bear you my testimony that we can do hard things. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
[i] Abraham 3: 25
[ii] Mosiah 3:5
[iii] 2 Nephi 2:11
[iv] Mosiah 3:7
[v] Luke 22:41-44
[vi] D&C 19:18-19
[vii] Alma 7:11-13
[viii] The Continuous Atonement- Brad Wilcox P. 58
[ix] D&C 122:7-9
[x] None Were with Him- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
This path of trials and challenges was anticipated and even carefully planned by our Heavenly Father. In the scriptures we read when the Earth was being created Heavenly Father said when He placed man on the earth, “we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.”[i]
I do not believe for one second that these eighteen months of intense pain, growing, and endurance were a coincidence, or a mistake, or unplanned. Yes we were placed on this earth to be tested. But we were NOT left in the dark. In fact Heavenly Father sent His only begotten son to us for a perfect example to mirror our lives after. And to pay the price for our mistakes when we just can’t seem to get it right. When we learn to see our heartache from his point of view, suddenly we have learned to walk by Christ’s side.
The Savior’s life was FILLED with miracle after miracle, and incredible experience after incredible experience. He spent His mission ministering, teaching, and loving each individual person. But many times we overlook, or fail to comprehend the intense personal trials, heartaches, and suffering Christ himself experienced while here on this Earth.
In the Book of Mormon in Mosiah, King Benjamin the prophet tells about the future coming and life of Christ, “For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.”[ii]
What a joyful and inspiring mission. Christ must have experienced great joy while ministering here on this earth. Another prophet, Lehi, in the Book of Mormon explains, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.”[iii]
King Benjamin continues to testify of the pain that Christ would experiment in his life. I imagine it equals the joy he felt during his ministry; “And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.”[iv]
My mission was also FILLED with miracle after miracle, incredible experience after incredible experience, and tender mercy after tender mercy. But as these scriptures show us, with my joy I had to experience equal pain, to be able to recognize that joy! If Christ, the Creator of the world, our Savior and Redeemer, the very Son of God had to pass through unimaginable sorrow, so must we experience even just a fraction of what He endured. So as I share some of my trials with you, please do not think for one second that I was not happy. I was able to experience more happiness because Heavenly Father loved me enough to cut me down.
After a short time of being in the mission field the first real and ground shaking trial hit me. It was in a time of peace, everything was just going right. We were finally having success in a difficult area and I was really beginning to love my temporary assignment to Arizona. It was as if nothing could go wrong. We were working one day, and had just gotten into the car when my mission President called. He asked me if I had a minute and if I was sitting. Up until this moment in my life I had always thought I was pretty strong. Turns out I didn’t know what strong was… yet.
He explained to me that my brother Riley was sick. They had found a tumor. My mind began to go blank and fuzzy. Telling myself over and over again that he was wrong. It probably wasn’t anything serious. Riley would be fine. After all, I was always the sick kid, he was my hulking, stalwart brother. He didn’t get sick. I began to cry “no, no, no” repeatedly into the phone.
My world was shaken. The next day I got to Skype with my family. They seemed so calm, and happy. How could they all be so sure? I had to be there. I convinced myself I had to be there. Then Riley showed strength I had never before seen in my little brother. He told me, “Stay, my battle is here and yours is there. I will fight here, if you will fight there.” I put on a brave face as my heart crumbled to pieces, I heard the words leave my mouth, “I will stay.”
That next week I spent countless hours in prayer. Every second, I was praying just to keep it together through the next appointment. I would find myself in tears various times a day, and on my knees even more. A constant state of terror and stress set over me. It felt like someone was gripping my heart and slowly twisting. After a few hair brained schemes to get home and still be a missionary and to no avail once again I found myself on my knees.
And this was the moment, when I began to understand that the Atonement of Jesus Christ doesn’t just kick in after we die, it covers us—ALWAYS. Brothers and Sisters, I testify to you, that the Lord visits his people in their afflictions. He weeps with us. That night I felt a peace come into me and a surety flood over me when there was not ground to be found. I swore, if I had reached out my hand, I would have touched Christ’s tear stained face.
As Latter-Day Saints we believe that the Atonement was completed in two specific events. The first being when Christ suffered in Gethsemane before His crucifixion on Calvary. In the Bible we read that Christ went to a garden called Gethsemane; it says, “he kneeled down and prayed. Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
“And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” [v]
In the scriptures Christ describes His pain while realizing the Atonement. He says, “Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter up, and shrink--
Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.”[vi]
The preparations He talks about are explained in the Book of Mormon when Alma says, “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
“And he will take upon him death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
“Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance;”[vii]
In that Garden Christ took upon himself, and felt our pains, sicknesses, guilt, and sadness. He knows each of the sorrows we feel here. He did this for each of us individually. He knelt in the Garden and prayed for each one of us. He called out your name, and felt your deepest sorrows. So that one day, when you are in your own personal Gethsemane, being crushed by the weight of your sorrow, He could come and succor you. Because Jesus gave His all, He can comfort us in all our sorrows and wipe away all our tears[viii].
In the scripture I read earlier it said that Heavenly Father sent an angel to His Son while in his deepest agony. This is the love of the Father for each one of you. As He watched his beloved, perfect and spotless Son in the greatest agony EVER felt I believe that our faces came to his mind’s eye. Could Heavenly Father have stopped Christ’s suffering? Of course. Did he? No. because your face came into His mind, knowing that if Christ didn’t fulfill the Atonement our Father would lose us forever. So in a desperate and loving attempt to comfort His Only Begotten Son, God sent an angel. That night, as I knelt on my knees, in my Gethsemane, my Father sent me His Son.
After that night the trials never stopped. There were countless times, suffering from spiritual heartache, or intense physical pain coming from my own health issues when I exclaimed in fervent prayer, “Why Lord, when I have tried all my life to be good, why has this happened to me?” As my ability to walk lessened each day I began to feel like the Prophet Joseph when locked in a prison cell. I found solace in the answer that Heavenly Father gave to him:
“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderes, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
“The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? (…) fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.”[ix]
Elder Holland said, “because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: “I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you]’”
Elder Holland pleas with us that we never reenact the scenes of Christ lonely betrayal as he faced the crucifixion. “He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His [path to Calvary] in our present day. May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. May we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.”[x]
The path to happiness, salvation, and exaltation ALWAYS walked through Gethsemane and Calvary. This year was NOT easy. It feels like my family and I have been through hell and back this year. But we have NEVER known such happiness. Truly when we give our all to the Lord, He can take care of everything else much better than we could have ever imagined. I returned to a family whose faith is unwavering. Whose hope in an uncertain future is unshakeable. And whose love for the savior is immense and overwhelming. We passed through a refiners fire and standing on the other side I can testify to you that it was worth it. I cannot promise you that your trials will go away or become easier. But I can promise that when we strive to walk side by side with Christ, He will wipe away every tear.
I ask anyone with doubts about a mission to listen to my story. Trust your Father in Heaven that He will take care of everything. I may have experienced great pain, but I have never known greater joy.
One day Christ will come unto me, I will have the opportunity to wet the marks in his hands and feet with my tears and kiss his face, and feel his embrace. But I will not know any more than I know now that Christ is the living Son of a Living God. That this is His Church upon the earth and that He lives today.
I bear you my testimony that we can do hard things. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
[i] Abraham 3: 25
[ii] Mosiah 3:5
[iii] 2 Nephi 2:11
[iv] Mosiah 3:7
[v] Luke 22:41-44
[vi] D&C 19:18-19
[vii] Alma 7:11-13
[viii] The Continuous Atonement- Brad Wilcox P. 58
[ix] D&C 122:7-9
[x] None Were with Him- Elder Jeffrey R. Holland