Our Relief Society lesson yesterday was about the Atonement. The sweet woman that taught the lesson struggled from the very beginning. She felt so strongly and so deeply about the topic that she had a hard time organizing her thoughts. As she faltered to find her train of thought, one by one, the women in the class shared quotes and scriptures and personal stories. After each quote was read, the teacher held up a paper and said, "I was reading along with you. I have that quote here."
She had not handed out any of these quotes. We were finding them on our own, some from the lesson material, some from notes we had in our scriptures, all by listening to the promptings of the Spirit. The change in the room was amazing. Instead of being uncomfortable and concerned for the teacher, we felt the Holy Ghost witnessing to the truthfulness of what was being shared.
One quote that won't leave my head was from Chieko Okazaki. She was the first counselor in the General Relief Society presidency in the mid-nineties. Someone shared a quote from the preface to her book Lighten Up. I've been trying to edit it to share here, and I've only been able to pair it down a touch.
“Well, my
dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know
that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our
faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t
think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities
about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human
family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it
individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of
cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it
felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the
brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship
sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau.
He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.
"Let me go
further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also
know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your
baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain
of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and
menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last
recorded words to his disciples were, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto
the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when
your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your
fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down
syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter...abuses
your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when
someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when
you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when
you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple
last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband
has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been
lower than all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people
don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is
the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by
us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness,
in our guilt and our grief."
