Broken becomes Beautiful through the Healing Power of the Atonement

Look around your. Take careful notice. Our Ward is overflowing with personal
suffering. There are those around us today with chronic illness, private pain, deep worry,
broken hearts, and losses that seem unbearable. There are those sitting beside you that
struggle with past abuse or heart shattering depression. Perhaps your neighbor feels like
they are on the outside or even feels like an outcast. Maybe the person across the isle that
smiled your way when you came in is struggling with their faith or their hope. Perhaps
you are lonely or afraid.

We suffer as a result of our sins but much of our suffering is not our fault. Unexpected
events, contradicting or disappointing circumstances, interrupting illness and death are all
part of a mortal existence. We also suffer afflictions because of the actions of others.

We have been taught and hear so much about the Saviors atonement as providing the way
for our salvation through it’s blessings of repentance. Today I would like to testify that
the Healing power of the atonement is the means by which Broken becomes beautiful. I
want to share some ways that I have found to reach for those gifts the Savior offers each
of us with arms stretched out.

1. We must understand that our afflictions and hardships are part of his plan
2. We must know how we are valued by our Heavenly Father and these experiences are
necessary for our eternal progression
3. We must learn how to reach for his love, comfort, and understanding
4. We must exercise faith in the Savior’s atoning love by following the guidance of the
Holy Ghost as he comforts you.
5. Finally we must emulate him with the understanding that we are an integral part of
the Saviors healing powers as we become his hands in our service to others.

1. We must understand that our afflictions and hardships are part of his plan

Having faith in Heavenly Father’s plan is essential, especially during times of hardship.
The precious Plan of Salvation in it’s fullness can be difficult to comprehend, so it’s very
important to remember that we trusted and chose to follow this plan. We agreed to come
to this Earth where powerful forces would act upon us. The physical force of gravity and
the spiritual forces of evil would constantly pull at us from the moment of our first breath
until our last.

Isaiah 64:8
“But now, Oh Lord, thou art our father: we are the clay, and thou our potter, and
we all are the work of thy hand”
Each of us was molded, crafted, and created by our father’s loving hands. In his infinite
wisdom and enduring love he sent us, his priceless pottery, to earth:
YES, HE SENT US HERE KNOWING WE WERE BREAKABLE!
In some way we are all broken or have been broken in our life. We each know suffering
and have caused suffering even upon ourselves. We know the heartache of spiritual,
emotional, and physical pain.
Our Heavenly Father and our Savior know that overcoming affliction helps us to learn
and to grow. It allows us to gain understanding. It blesses us with the ability to
empathize.

Elder Orson Whitney taught

“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our
education, to the development of such qualities as patients, faith, fortitude, and humility.
It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation that we gain the education that we
come here to acquire”

Jesus Christ gives us love unfeigned. His charity sufferers long and is always kind. Just
as he provided us a way out of sin, he also provides for our ultimate healing and
redemption.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks has taught:

“Healing blessings come in many ways, each suited to our individual needs, as
known to Him who loves us best. Sometimes a ‘healing’ cures our illness or lifts our
burden. But sometimes we are ‘healed’ by being given strength or understanding or
patience to bear the burdens placed upon us. All that will come may be “clasped in the
arms of Jesus. All souls can be healed by His power. All pain can be soothed. In Him, we
can “find rest unto [our] souls.” Our mortal circumstances may not immediately change,
but our pain, worry, suffering, and fear can be swallowed up in His peace and healing
balm.”

2. To Know how we are valued by our Heavenly Father and these

experiences is necessary for our eternal progression

Person
“Why does the Lord continually heal us when it seems that for every step forward
we take a half step back.
Simple.
He can’t help it! He really loves us! He really cares! He understands completely”

Psalms 147:5
Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.
Kent F Richards thinks
“Perhaps Jesus Christ’s most significant work is in the ongoing labor with each of
us individually to lift, to bless, to strengthen, to sustain, to guide, and to forgive us”

Alma said of the Savior

“he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind:
and ...he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people”
“that his bowels may be filled with mercy...that he may know according to the
flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities”

Jesus chose to experience pains and afflictions in order to understand us. What greater
love is there?

Henry B Eyring teaches

“he could have known how to succor us simply by revelation, but he
chose to learn by his own personal experience”

This is applicable to each of us. Rather than forcing a smile to disguise our pain we are
asked time and time again by the Savior himself to reach for his outstretched hand.

2 Nephi 19 and 20 describes that his hands are stretched out for us and then 4 more times
it is repeated saying his, “hands are stretched out still.”

Alma 31:38
“and the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they
thirst. Yea, and he gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions,
save it were swallowed up in the Joy of Christ.”

In our society, if a piece of pottery breaks, it is viewed as useless and is simply thrown
away. There is a Japanese form of art called Kintsugi. It is known as the art of giving
new life to damaged or aging ceramic objects. They do not throw it away they use gold
and mend the pieces back together. The result are tremendously beautiful. The scars are
more visible and the shiny gold draws your eyes to the cracks.

The Saviors unequivocal love and divine mercy provides the golden joinery that pieces us
back together. Jesus brings our scars to light that have come from life’s difficult
experiences. He loves us despite those flaws and creates beauty from our imperfections.
He strengthens our weaknesses. He leads us to find a new purpose and happier life.

Doesn’t Ezekiel 36:26 describe Christ’s golden healing

“A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will
put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my
judgements, and do them.

The Savior’s teaching and his example are the treatment plan providing for absolute
healing for all those willing to completely follow him. The only way to glorified
redemptive healing is through Him.

John 14:6
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me”

3. Learn how to reach for his love, comfort, and understanding

How can we reach for his arm lovingly stretched out for us?

2 Nephi 2:7 answers:

“unto all those who have a broken hearth and a contrite spirit and to none else can
the ends of the law be answered”

How are we to come unto the Lord? Are we to come perfected and whole?
Our first step is the same first step the Savior took. We too must condescend. We must
humble ourself to the debts of teachability. We must be lowly of heart and willing to
learn and to do hard things. We must follow the example of the prophet Nephi from the
Book of Mormon.

We can learn to look at our afflictions as Nephi did. We must pray and seek the strength
and faith to change our circumstances rather than pray for our circumstances to change.
We can pray to learn and grow each day. We must realize that through the Savior’s
example and the Holy Ghost’s guidance we can change how we see our affliction. We
then choose how we look at our situation and make choices that better our responses to
our circumstance. We can use those changes to better our future, strengthen our resolve
to reach righteousness, to fortify our determination to keep our covenants and resolve to
become like our elder Brother Jesus Christ. By doing these things deep scars left on our
spirit will become sealed in his golden love.

It is of great importance to remember all the savior did and made possible fore each of us
through this atoning sacrifice. Along with continual prayer, we should read the
scriptures diligently so that we can know the Savior and his expectations for us. This is
of the greatest importance. This is how we come to know him and appreciate the
miraculous gift he gives us. Studying the modern prophets revelation and teachings is
also paramount to our learning and growth. We will find great comfort in these words.
Diligent and Habitual Scripture study is essential because it can keep us focused and
provide assurance that we can overcome our present challenges with him by our side.

4. Exercise faith in the Savior’s atoning love by following the guidance

of the Holy Ghost as he comforts you

We must identify his presence by continued worthiness to hear the Holy Ghost’s
whispers. We must unstick ourself from the worldly views and values of the day. These
views leave us with pieces never fitting and chunks left out of the solution. Staying in
tune with the Holy Spirit and having faith that we will be lead to the perfect solutions and
the best answers to our questions will steer us clear of entrapments. We should allow the
comforter to wrap us in the warmth of a perfect brightness of hope.

Elder Holland
Of greatest assurance in God’s plan is that a Savior was promised, a Redeemer, who
through our faith in Him would lift us triumphantly over those tests and trials, even
though the cost to do so would be unfathomable for both the Father who sent Him and the
Son who came. It is only an appreciation of this divine love that will make our own
lesser suffering first bearable, then understandable and finally redemptive.

5. Finally we must emulate him with the understanding that we are an

integral part of the Saviors healing powers as we become his hands
in our service to others.

I know and testify to you that our Heavenly Father, through the Savior’s golden love and
the Holy Ghost’s soft direction, we will each be guided along the path to seal our cracks,
strengthen our weaknesses, and mend our broken pieces to become a beautiful vessel for
him. That we might hold our responsibility to serve him. that we would be learned
enough and strong enough to overcome hardship and be able enough to take on the task
of bearing one another’s burdens. That we might carry the burden of those that have
broken hearts, broken families, broken faith or any broken circumstance. In this way we
help them to heal and become their own beautiful vessel able to carry their burden and
another’s brokenness as they mend.

When we realize that we are each of great value and that we are an integral part of his
healing power, we can begin to understand that no matter the trauma, despair, hurt, fear,
abuse, failure, addiction, disease, or even death, our scars and wounds become a beautiful
testament of the Healing Power of the Saviors precious atonement.
“And remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that
doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple. … Thou shalt bear their infirmities.”
(D&C 52:40;, D&C 42:52.)

“Our faith in the power of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is the great unifier. Our love for
our Heavenly Father and knowledge of His great plan of happiness bind us together as we
seek eternal life.

Could we try a little harder to fortify others so powerfully that whatever temptations the
devil throws at them, they will be able to withstand and thus truly in that moment be free
from evil? Could we try a little harder to teach so powerfully and so spiritually that we
really help that individual who walks alone, who lives alone, who weeps in the dark of
the night?

For the most part, mental illness is caused by an absence of or defect in the love that a
particular child required from its particular parents for successful maturation and spiritual
growth. It is obvious, then, that in order to be healed, that person must receive at least a
portion of the genuine love of which the he/she was deprived. If one cannot genuinely
love them, genuine healing will not occur. A totally uncredentialed and minimally
trained lay person who exercises a great capacity to love will achieve psychotherapeutic
results that equal or exceed those of the very best psychiatrists

There is infinite power in unconditional love as exemplified by our sweet Savior.

We must love each member of this ward family genuinely. We must edify one another.
This act will bring about redemptive healing.

To watch the healing effect of the atonement is to witness the essence of the gospel.

In Job 23:10 he says

“when the Lord has tried me, I shall come forth as gold”

I testify that through the Healing Power of the Atonement Jesus Christ will change your
brokenness to Beautiful.