One thing I was reading about it my studies today was about more miracles from Christ in Mark. These two are my favorites . . . .
Luke 5:12 ¶And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.
I love this. He is just so kind to the man, and so so so willing to heal him.
The second one:
Luke 7: 6 Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof:
7 Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed.
Somehow I never had realized that Jesus, amidst getting mocked by the scribes for maybe going to enter the unclean house on the centurion, went with them. He was fully planning on breaking social code to heal this man's servant. It only was the faith and insistence of the centurion that he healed him with his word and didn't go to actually see him. Christ was so willing to heal others, even when it put him in a bad situation.
The last experience was a personal one. I always hear that you hit a point after your mission when you realize that you aren't as spiritual as you were on the mission. And I was like, no, I will read my scriptures everyday, I will do everything I can, that won't happen to me. But then this week I realized that a weakness I had had, that had really become a strength during the mission, had again become a weakness. And it was especially clear this week that this weakness was going to be hard to get rid of. And I was sitting at the first presidency xmas devotional and there was a part where it just hit me how many times I had slipped up that week, and I realized with perfect clarity this weakness and I felt so frustrated that I still had it, and that it was probably going to be between a strength and a weakness my whole life . . that it would be the thing to keep me humble. And I was so so so so so frustrated. I closed my eyes as I teared up with frustration with myself and a lack of hope that maybe this weakness I would deal with for the rest of my life and how I did not want to do that. Oh, how I wanted my weakness to just have to be overcome once and then be done with it for forever. I sat there praying silently in the middle of a talk, lost in my own pleadings that I did not want be this kind of person, I didn't want this weakness. And right as I again focused on the words of the speaker, he testified that the Lord came down as a little babe to the Earth so he could perform the atonement, because the atonement has the power to dry all tears. And as I sat there with tears in my eyes, the spirit testified that the atonement was the answer. I can do all things through the atonement. And as long as I used it, I would not be overcome. I would progress and be ok.
I know that the atonement changes lives. Our investigators lives, but even more than this, our lives. There may be weaknesses that we will have for the rest of our lives, but the atonement is infinite. There is no end to its mercy. So use it, and learn to love it, because a day won't go by, especially after the mission, that you won't need it.
Love,
Liza
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