Pain, Suffering...Offering

The pain was almost more than I could handle. I rested on my bed one afternoon, about a week after I'd had a major surgery, and all I could think was, "I'm in pain. I don't feel well. I am so sick." The pain medication I had received made me nauseated, the antibiotics made me dizzy, and every waking moment felt like absolute torture.

I could hear my children downstairs, laughing and playing with our friends from church (who lovingly took over all of my motherhood responsibilities for several weeks), and I wondered how I would endure all this suffering. I wanted to be the one helping my children with their homework, making dinner, and reading stories, yet there I was on my bed--completely "useless," from my perspective.

Desperate for companionship during the pain, I called my mother on the phone and asked her my most pressing question: "Mom, what do you do when you are in so much pain that you can not read or think or listen to music or watch television or ANYTHING?" I didn't think she would have an answer to that, but she did, and it has strengthened me every day since.

"April," she said, "you turn your thoughts to the Savior. You pray to Him. You speak to Him. You praise Him. You make your pain an offering to Him. Every time you take a challenging situation and turn it into a spiritual one, that is your offering."

As my mother said those words, something started to awaken within me, and I asked her to tell me more. She then shared an experience from a skiing accident she'd had in college where she had broken her leg and suffered more than at any other point in her life. As she laid in her hospital bed, absolutely writhing with pain, she thought, "If there had been a way for me to take some of the pain away from the Savior during the atonement, would I have been willing to suffer THIS much for Him?" Yes, of course she would.

I held on to that thought for the next several weeks as I worked toward a full recovery. Whenever the pain got to be too great, I would ask, "Would I have been willing to suffer this much if it would have lessened His suffering?" The answer was always yes, and somehow that helped me endure it well because I wasn't thinking about myself anymore. I was thinking about the Savior's love for us and how He took upon Himself all our pains and sicknesses and sins.

In Alma 7:12, it says, "...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."

Turning pain and suffering into an offering for Christ is not just for those with physical pain. It is for those who are emotionally, mentally, and spiritually suffering as well (doesn't that describe all of us?). As we take each of our struggles and turn them into spiritual experiences, we are partnering with the Lord, and we will feel His love and peace.

The words of Luke 5:31 also strengthened me during that time of intense pain: "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." I really, really needed a physician to help me through the health challenges I had. There was no way for me to cure myself--just as there is no way to repent of my sins and return to God without Jesus Christ. When we are sick (physically or otherwise), it is to remind us how much we need the Physician.

None of our sufferings are without purpose. The Lord will give us personal tutoring through our trials to help us increase our faith. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the quorum of the twelve apostles gave a beautiful talk called Lessons from Liberty Jail. Here are some thoughts of his that greatly impressed me:

"You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life -- in the words settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced."

"...every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace."

None of us want to be in pain. We don't want to suffer. However, when we DO go through challenges (which, of course, we will), it is essential that we partner with our Lord and Savior. He will make us stronger, and He will help us to see that our struggles have a purpose...to create an opportunity in which we can make an offering to Him, turn our hearts to Him, and increase our faith.