FATHER'S SORROW

 

I have reflected from time to time on my inability to understand how a loving Father could send His children to a vale of suffering. Yes, I have always understood the Gospel’s explanation of the fact that we needed to grow and be tested but I could not really process this emotionally and reconcile it with my heart, especially since I am a mother and a mother would do anything to prevent suffering for her children. I also understood that God has all past, present and future before Him constantly so He knows we will eventually come through our sufferings. Still, my heart could not really accept that either.

This morning as I prayed, I understood so clearly what a sacrifice it was for the Father to send us to mortality. I remembered His conversation with Enoch and how He wept showing him His disobedient children on earth (Moses 7:28). There cannot possibly be pain without love. Those who hurt you the most are the ones you love the most. I understood that the Father’s tender feelings are ever present throughout our mortal probation. As I prayed and understood this, I had an overwhelming desire to make up for all those who do not want to know Him or those who are willfully disobedient. I wept knowing how inadequate I am to bring this to fruition but I had an overwhelming desire to be a dutiful daughter, even like His dutiful Son. I hope that my desire at least, will be some solace to His pained heart.

If sending us to a period of suffering was hard enough for Him, imagine how hard it was for the Father to allow His only mortal son, His Only Begotten, to descend to the bottomless pit of human suffering. This is the sacrifice greatest of all. Not just the sacrifice of the Son in laying down His life, but the sacrifice of the Father in allowing Him to do it. There is only one thing in my mind that would make this possible and that is Father’s knowledge of the joy that awaits us because of this sacrifice. The greatest thing He can give us is eternal joy, but even greater, His heart, which He has sacrificed for a season so this can become a reality. This is love.

And here is serious food for thought that I have found hard to accept: “If God suffers as mortal parents do when one of their children suffers, then, as long as God procreates, He will suffer…..God has felt and will yet feel our infirmities because He loves us, rejoices with us, suffers with us, and weeps with us. His suffering is a never-ending process of which the Atonement was an integral part. In this sense, the Saviour’s suffering continues, worlds without end.” (Elder Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement, p 155)

The last sentence is like a dagger to my heart…..

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Artist Unknown)