An Empty Tomb

I have spent this week in El Paso alone. My roommate and friend Jake has been home for the week and I have been left by myself. It has been a busy week at work but when I get home and am sitting on my bed it is hard to keep my spirits up. I have thought a lot about trial and weakness in our lives and how the Savior provides us the only way to overcome. I wrote an email to my family and wanted to post it here because I think  that the things that I have felt are significant to any person, especially those who have been weighed down with sorrow for whatever reason.

My dearest family,
I am sitting on my bed in my apartment here in El Paso thinking about all of my blessings and you all came to mind. I had an experience yesterday that has had a significant impact on my life and I wanted to share it with those that I love. I was in the preoperative holding area interviewing a sweet little lady prior to her hernia repair. In actuality she was not that little but that is not significant to the story. The lady was genuinely happy and pleasant to everyone that she met. She introduced her daughter and grandson to everyone that came by and you could see how proud she was of them. I was wheeling her back to what was to be a one to two hour procedure that turned into a 7 hour one. The longer you are under anesthesia the deeper you get and the harder that it can be to control. The narcotics and gases that we use saturate into the adipose tissue and builds up. Anyway when you wake people up from a deep anesthesia or sometimes even light anesthesia they talk about deep secrets or misdeeds or whatever they happen to have ingrained into their subconscious mind. Some people come out swinging and swearing like a drunken sailor and others just wake up without incident. In this case, as this lady began to emerge from her anesthesia she began to pray out loud. She raised her hands to heaven and praised God that she had woken up and then began to thank the Savior for saving her. Over and over she repeated the words, "Thank you Jesus, thank you for saving me". We were wheeling her on her bed to recovery and the whole time she had her hands extended to heaven and she wept as she thanked God. I do not know what religion the lady was and it does not really matter. What I do know is that her love of God and the Savior is so deep that it was the first conscious thought she had. She has a relationship with Him. She knows, as King Benjamin taught, that we are dependent upon God for everything, that we ourselves are nothing. God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to earth to save His children. Christ did what no one else could, breaking the bonds of physical and spiritual death which we celebrate at this time of year. My prayer is that each of us can come unto Him "and be perfected IN Him". There is no other way nor name under heaven through which we can be saved. Moroni taught this in the 12th chapter of Ether 27th verse. This is a familiar scripture about our weaknesses and how they can be made strengths. I have read that scripture so many times but had missed some of the meaning until the crucible of my current situation. Through the eyes of my trials I now see what Moroni was saying, at least to me. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness." Weakness is singular, it does not say weaknesses, meaning our struggles or tendencies toward certain temptations. I think that it refers to our imperfect, corruptible, fallen state, something that can only be changed through our relationship with the Savior and our dependence and exercise of the atonement though that relationship. So as we come to the Savior we see our weakness and our need for redemption. "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." So according to the scripture this weakness is given to us to make us humble. In the same chapter of Ether in the 39th verse there is a little different use of the word humble or in this case humility. Moroni is talking about seeing the Savior face to face and speaking to Him, Moroni says, ". . . He (the Savior) hath talked with me face to face, and that he told me in plain humility, even as a man telleth another . . ." I think that this use of humility referring to the state in which Christ talked to Moroni is a little more accurate. Christ spoke to Moroni as himself, as He is. When we are humble we strip ourselves of all pretense, self-aggrandizement, and pride and see our weak and fallen state as King Benjamin and King Lamoni's father saw. They realized that the only way to overcome our weakness is through our relationship with Christ, and yes, as some evangelicals have put it, accepting Him as your personal Savior. So a quick recap, weakness is given to men, inherent in our mortal condition, realizing our weakness (after coming to the Savior which is really the only way to see your weakness) helps us to be humble or to see ourselves as we truly are utterly dependent upon the Savior for all, this leads us to exercise faith in Him, and through our exercise of faith through the atonement and our relationship with the Savior through it, we become strong because the Savior is strong, as we take the yoke with Him His strength becomes our strength and we can truly become perfected IN Christ (Moroni 10:32-33). The whole point of our weakness is to bring us to the Savior, to help us to have a relationship with Him. Weakness is an opportunity, an invitation, to come unto Christ. I pray that as you struggle with life that your first conscious thought will be of the Savior and that you look unto Him to save you from your weakness for there is no other way. I know that the Savior suffered in Gethsemane and on Golgotha's hill was crucified. I also know that He rose triumphant from the tomb on the third day and that He continues to live today and desires a personal relationship with each of us. What better time of year to develop that relationship. I love each of you and receive strength from you all. Happy Easter.
Brett