Bryt: Day 245 (Sunday, October 31)

         For our 5th Sunday lesson we had a set of senior missionaries visit our ward. They began speaking and I started thinking about the kind of devotion it takes to serve a mission and how these people must have been so good their whole lives and he was probably a bishop at some point and yada yada yada...my basic thoughts were headed in the direction of "they must be perfect". They talked about how they met while they were serving together in the temple, and they courted in the temple cafeteria. Once again, I am thinking, "They must be perfect."  Then they explained they were here from the church's 12 Step Addiction Recovery Program, and she was from a broken family with a father who left her when she was 11 and she never heard from him again because he was an alcoholic. She went on and told us about all the resentment she had for her father until after he died, when a letter was found from her mother to her father, asking him to stay out of their children's lives until he got his act together. She expressed her admiration for his devotion to his family and her  heartbreak at knowing how hard it must have been for him to be a slave to something that kept him away from his family. At this point I was thinking she must be the reason this cute little couple was serving in the 12 Step Addiction program. Then, the brother got up and spoke. He talked all about how happy the two of them are, and how blissful his life has been....recently. Only since he got out of prison and finally kicked his addiction to alcohol. Here was a man, late in his life, testifying of the truth of the gospel and how when rehab, AA, and every other program on the planet could not help him, his Savior could.
     I am so thankful for the atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for it's cleansing power which can blot out our sins so thoroughly that someone with as hard a life as these two can testify to His redeeming grace. I know He loves us, and I know He holds us tight in times of need. I know the pain I feel when others around me are making choices that may hurt their lives is only a small sliver of the heartache He knows, and I know I can go to Him for comfort when I myself feel broken and weak. He is my rock and my strength and I hope He continues to send me moments that allow me to feel His love.
     Even if they are hard ones.