These next posts about how I see the Savior are excessively personal and sacred. It has been impressed upon my heart to share them, but I hope that if you are not in a space to read and treat these things as sacred, that you will come back at another time. I do not trifle with sacred things and I hope that you feel the same.
Also, please be so aware that this is my personal testimony. These are things I have learned at great cost and great sacrifice. I do not claim them to be the doctrine of the LDS church and I do not claim to have the authority to teach these things as such. This is my testimony as gained through my experiences and my interpretations of those experiences.
There was a time in my life when the name Jesus Christ only meant some imaginary being with whom I had no connection. He was not real to me. I did not know Him. I believed He was real - that was never a question for me. But I did not have a relationship with Him - He seemed more like an imaginary friend than an actual person.
There have been a myriad of experiences which have led me to this place where He is the most real person in my life. I know Him well. I know His heart. I know He knows me well. I know He knows my heart. We share much together and enjoy each others' company in such beautiful and profound ways. The truths I know about Him which I desire to share with you are very vulnerable and sacred truths for me because I am bearing open to unknown readers my most intimate and sacred relationship. I ask you to tread so very carefully in this space with me.
When I was going through a particularly dark and heavy time in my life - a time when I had given up all hope and felt despair as never before - I knew I needed to really understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ in order to trust Him and believe Him. It was after my 11th miscarriage and all my hope and belief that I would ever become a mother sank and was lost. And when the hope of all you've ever desired to be your entire life is suddenly gone, life becomes very black and heavy. My Relief Society President, Dova, was the only person other than my husband who knew I was pregnant...after the first couple of miscarriages, we learned to keep silent until we were certain.
Dova gave me a big hug that next Sunday at church. She told me that she didn't know how to comfort me, but that she was certain the Lord knew how and that He would, indeed give me comfort.
I went home bitter. I did not believe her. I knew the scriptures said that, but I had some very real doubts. Jesus Christ was a real person - a man. He had not had the mortal experience of being a woman. He didn't know the physical experiences of female life. He didn't experience regular menstrual cramps, let alone the physical pain of going through labor. He didn't have the experience of the emotional pain of laboring for a baby you know is already dead. He did not feel the crazy changes that happen in a woman's body when the baby in her dies and her hormones shift again and again while the body tries to figure out what it's supposed to be doing with this once alive, now dead, foreign object inside.
Yes, I knew He was my Savior. I just didn't know how He knew what I needed in that moment. How did He, having a mortal experience as a man, even begin to know what was going on inside of me and how to comfort me?
Those were bitter and angry questions for the first week after my miscarriage. Then something in me shifted and my faith came back to me. And I asked those questions again, but with a desire to know. I believed the scriptures and now I desperately needed understanding. I needed to obtain them.
So I began in 1 Nephi 1:1. I decided I would read all of the standard works and focus on every verse that taught me something about the Atonement. I began and then I came to 1 Nephi 19:23 where Nephi tells us, "...but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah..."
I immediately turned to Isaiah. I read all 66 chapters of Isaiah. By this time it had been about 2 months since my miscarriage. I had read all 66 chapters and not a single word made sense to me. Not one. It was all just jibberish and nonsensical. Was Isaiah even in English? I was so very confused.
It was not an option to stop. I needed this answer more than I needed anything. I was desperate because I was broken and in the darkest place of my life. I had experienced the distressing of Ariel and understanding this doctrine had become as essential as breathing to me.
So I read all 66 chapters of Isaiah again. And again I did not understand a single word. Six times through the entirety of Isaiah and about 8 months after my miscarriage, a single verse popped out and I understood it. Just one verse in all the 66 chapters. But that verse gave me hope that I was capable of understanding Isaiah.
With renewed hope, I returned to the beginning and read again. I read each chapter so carefully, as carefully as I had ever read them. When I came to chapter 53, I could not move on. I knew that in this chapter I would find my answers.
I pondered, read, searched, defined every single word in that chapter. For months. I was still so very desperate for how He knew. Because if I could know that He knew how to comfort me, then I could be patient in waiting for that comfort to come. I could wait until the millenium if necessary, as long as I had that real testimony that He did, in fact, know how to comfort me.
Somewhere in my fourteenth month after my miscarriage, I had the most sacred, life-altering experience I had ever had up to that point in my life. I cannot tell you whether it was a dream or a vision. I do not know.
But what I know is that one moment I was sitting on my porch in Indiana, looking out over the soybean fields and watching the fireflies and pondering on chapter 53 of Isaiah. I had asked the Lord to show me what Isaiah saw that made him write those words. I had been asking for months. There were so many words that did not make sense to me. "...he shall see his seed..." - which he and how will he see his seed? Is it literal? Is it symbolic? What does that mean???? "...he shall prolong his days..." - who? The Savior? He died at 33...that's not prolonging His days. That's really short - even by the standards of that time. So how were his days prolonged? And who is the "he" who is prolonging the days??? "...by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many..." - by what knowledge? What is this knowledge to which Isaiah is referring? How??? "Yet is pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul and offering..." - who is who here??? Which him and which he is the Savior? Is the other "he" the Father? If not, then who?
There were so many things that just did not make logical sense from these verses and I had been pondering them for months. I could tell and feel with everything in me that the answers I sought would be found in these verses of this chapter. I knew it. I just could not understand them even though the answers were right there in front of me. I had been wrestling with these scriptures for months and the truths were about to burst forth upon me, I could feel it.
The next moment, I was in an entirely different place with an entirely different scene before my eyes - there were no more soybean fields and fireflies. Instead, I was in Gethsemane. I saw the Savior in front of me, in the midst of His suffering. There was no interaction. Just an awareness of each other in that moment of existence.
I do not have words to describe what I saw and understood in that moment. There are no words that could possibly even begin to explain what Gethsemane actually is. The understanding I gained was far more than anything I had ever imagined before. One moment I was in Gethsemane with Jesus Christ and then the next I was given great understanding concerning the Atonement which He has offered to each of us.
Time is the thing which keeps us from fully understanding what Gethsemane truly is. It does not exist in time. It is in it's own little pocket outside of time and space. Gethsemane is. It always has been and always will be as long as the probationary state of this earth is. What I saw taught me that the Savior most assuredly does know how to succor His people. He knows you. Intimately and personally. He is in Gethsemane, this very moment, experiencing your life as though it were His own. Completely. He has been with you in each moment since you were first conceived. He has seen everything through your eyes. He has heard everything through your ears. He has your perspective, your definitions, your understandings, your beliefs all inside of Him as though they were His own.
I watched Him experience my life. Every. Single. Moment. All of it up to that point when I had had my 11th miscarriage. Then I was suddenly back in Gethsemane with Him. He looked at me. When our eyes met, my mind was flooded with scriptures. I was familiar with some of them. I have since become familiar with more. Some of them have left me as I have been unable to find them and my memory does not hold all of those words. But suddenly I understood what He meant when He said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto...the least of these...ye have done it unto me." "Behold and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end." "I God have suffered these things for all..."
On and on, all of these scriptures flooded my mind as I looked into His eyes.
Then I was sitting on my porch. Looking at the fireflies. And feeling the awe of the very extraordinary event I just experienced in a very ordinary moment.
From this experience, which I wish I knew how to share properly because it was most profound and deep and illuminating, I gained a very real understanding of Isaiah 53. I am going to attempt to share with you what those verses mean to me. I hope that the meaning will be understood because if you can understand what I'm trying to share, then it will surely change your life as it did mine.
I also gained an understanding as to how other religions and belief systems go from a pure truth - that is that the Savior is literally with each of us in every moment of our lives because of the existence of Gethsemane as a sort of parallel dimension (if you will) - I see how that truth which has been taught ever since Adam and Eve were told they would be provided a Savior...it could become polluted if not understood properly. And then it could become a belief that God is in each of us and therefore each one of us is God. The "new age" religions and several eastern religions adhere to this belief. Without clarification of truth, it would be easy to see how this belief came into existence. It is almost truth and yet it has twisted the truth into something so false that it can blind us from the actual truth.
Also, please be so aware that this is my personal testimony. These are things I have learned at great cost and great sacrifice. I do not claim them to be the doctrine of the LDS church and I do not claim to have the authority to teach these things as such. This is my testimony as gained through my experiences and my interpretations of those experiences.
There was a time in my life when the name Jesus Christ only meant some imaginary being with whom I had no connection. He was not real to me. I did not know Him. I believed He was real - that was never a question for me. But I did not have a relationship with Him - He seemed more like an imaginary friend than an actual person.
There have been a myriad of experiences which have led me to this place where He is the most real person in my life. I know Him well. I know His heart. I know He knows me well. I know He knows my heart. We share much together and enjoy each others' company in such beautiful and profound ways. The truths I know about Him which I desire to share with you are very vulnerable and sacred truths for me because I am bearing open to unknown readers my most intimate and sacred relationship. I ask you to tread so very carefully in this space with me.
When I was going through a particularly dark and heavy time in my life - a time when I had given up all hope and felt despair as never before - I knew I needed to really understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ in order to trust Him and believe Him. It was after my 11th miscarriage and all my hope and belief that I would ever become a mother sank and was lost. And when the hope of all you've ever desired to be your entire life is suddenly gone, life becomes very black and heavy. My Relief Society President, Dova, was the only person other than my husband who knew I was pregnant...after the first couple of miscarriages, we learned to keep silent until we were certain.
Dova gave me a big hug that next Sunday at church. She told me that she didn't know how to comfort me, but that she was certain the Lord knew how and that He would, indeed give me comfort.
I went home bitter. I did not believe her. I knew the scriptures said that, but I had some very real doubts. Jesus Christ was a real person - a man. He had not had the mortal experience of being a woman. He didn't know the physical experiences of female life. He didn't experience regular menstrual cramps, let alone the physical pain of going through labor. He didn't have the experience of the emotional pain of laboring for a baby you know is already dead. He did not feel the crazy changes that happen in a woman's body when the baby in her dies and her hormones shift again and again while the body tries to figure out what it's supposed to be doing with this once alive, now dead, foreign object inside.
Yes, I knew He was my Savior. I just didn't know how He knew what I needed in that moment. How did He, having a mortal experience as a man, even begin to know what was going on inside of me and how to comfort me?
Those were bitter and angry questions for the first week after my miscarriage. Then something in me shifted and my faith came back to me. And I asked those questions again, but with a desire to know. I believed the scriptures and now I desperately needed understanding. I needed to obtain them.
So I began in 1 Nephi 1:1. I decided I would read all of the standard works and focus on every verse that taught me something about the Atonement. I began and then I came to 1 Nephi 19:23 where Nephi tells us, "...but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah..."
I immediately turned to Isaiah. I read all 66 chapters of Isaiah. By this time it had been about 2 months since my miscarriage. I had read all 66 chapters and not a single word made sense to me. Not one. It was all just jibberish and nonsensical. Was Isaiah even in English? I was so very confused.
It was not an option to stop. I needed this answer more than I needed anything. I was desperate because I was broken and in the darkest place of my life. I had experienced the distressing of Ariel and understanding this doctrine had become as essential as breathing to me.
So I read all 66 chapters of Isaiah again. And again I did not understand a single word. Six times through the entirety of Isaiah and about 8 months after my miscarriage, a single verse popped out and I understood it. Just one verse in all the 66 chapters. But that verse gave me hope that I was capable of understanding Isaiah.
With renewed hope, I returned to the beginning and read again. I read each chapter so carefully, as carefully as I had ever read them. When I came to chapter 53, I could not move on. I knew that in this chapter I would find my answers.
I pondered, read, searched, defined every single word in that chapter. For months. I was still so very desperate for how He knew. Because if I could know that He knew how to comfort me, then I could be patient in waiting for that comfort to come. I could wait until the millenium if necessary, as long as I had that real testimony that He did, in fact, know how to comfort me.
Somewhere in my fourteenth month after my miscarriage, I had the most sacred, life-altering experience I had ever had up to that point in my life. I cannot tell you whether it was a dream or a vision. I do not know.
But what I know is that one moment I was sitting on my porch in Indiana, looking out over the soybean fields and watching the fireflies and pondering on chapter 53 of Isaiah. I had asked the Lord to show me what Isaiah saw that made him write those words. I had been asking for months. There were so many words that did not make sense to me. "...he shall see his seed..." - which he and how will he see his seed? Is it literal? Is it symbolic? What does that mean???? "...he shall prolong his days..." - who? The Savior? He died at 33...that's not prolonging His days. That's really short - even by the standards of that time. So how were his days prolonged? And who is the "he" who is prolonging the days??? "...by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many..." - by what knowledge? What is this knowledge to which Isaiah is referring? How??? "Yet is pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul and offering..." - who is who here??? Which him and which he is the Savior? Is the other "he" the Father? If not, then who?
There were so many things that just did not make logical sense from these verses and I had been pondering them for months. I could tell and feel with everything in me that the answers I sought would be found in these verses of this chapter. I knew it. I just could not understand them even though the answers were right there in front of me. I had been wrestling with these scriptures for months and the truths were about to burst forth upon me, I could feel it.
The next moment, I was in an entirely different place with an entirely different scene before my eyes - there were no more soybean fields and fireflies. Instead, I was in Gethsemane. I saw the Savior in front of me, in the midst of His suffering. There was no interaction. Just an awareness of each other in that moment of existence.
I do not have words to describe what I saw and understood in that moment. There are no words that could possibly even begin to explain what Gethsemane actually is. The understanding I gained was far more than anything I had ever imagined before. One moment I was in Gethsemane with Jesus Christ and then the next I was given great understanding concerning the Atonement which He has offered to each of us.
Time is the thing which keeps us from fully understanding what Gethsemane truly is. It does not exist in time. It is in it's own little pocket outside of time and space. Gethsemane is. It always has been and always will be as long as the probationary state of this earth is. What I saw taught me that the Savior most assuredly does know how to succor His people. He knows you. Intimately and personally. He is in Gethsemane, this very moment, experiencing your life as though it were His own. Completely. He has been with you in each moment since you were first conceived. He has seen everything through your eyes. He has heard everything through your ears. He has your perspective, your definitions, your understandings, your beliefs all inside of Him as though they were His own.
I watched Him experience my life. Every. Single. Moment. All of it up to that point when I had had my 11th miscarriage. Then I was suddenly back in Gethsemane with Him. He looked at me. When our eyes met, my mind was flooded with scriptures. I was familiar with some of them. I have since become familiar with more. Some of them have left me as I have been unable to find them and my memory does not hold all of those words. But suddenly I understood what He meant when He said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto...the least of these...ye have done it unto me." "Behold and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end." "I God have suffered these things for all..."
On and on, all of these scriptures flooded my mind as I looked into His eyes.
Then I was sitting on my porch. Looking at the fireflies. And feeling the awe of the very extraordinary event I just experienced in a very ordinary moment.
From this experience, which I wish I knew how to share properly because it was most profound and deep and illuminating, I gained a very real understanding of Isaiah 53. I am going to attempt to share with you what those verses mean to me. I hope that the meaning will be understood because if you can understand what I'm trying to share, then it will surely change your life as it did mine.
I also gained an understanding as to how other religions and belief systems go from a pure truth - that is that the Savior is literally with each of us in every moment of our lives because of the existence of Gethsemane as a sort of parallel dimension (if you will) - I see how that truth which has been taught ever since Adam and Eve were told they would be provided a Savior...it could become polluted if not understood properly. And then it could become a belief that God is in each of us and therefore each one of us is God. The "new age" religions and several eastern religions adhere to this belief. Without clarification of truth, it would be easy to see how this belief came into existence. It is almost truth and yet it has twisted the truth into something so false that it can blind us from the actual truth.
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