“Wilt Thou Comfort My Soul in Christ”
By G.G., Gregory, and David Vandagriff
Deliverance, Chapter 2
Editor’s note: If you missed the introduction and chapter 1 of Deliverance, you can read them here Please feel free to respond to any of the authors through G.G.’s website at www.GGVandagriff.com.
And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions; yea, God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds, and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in him, and he will still deliver me (Alma 36:27).
It is true that there are miraculous medications that can help your brain chemistry to function normally, but until this last year, none of them worked for me.
I was hospitalized for acute suicidality many times, had electro-convulsive therapy, and years and years of psychotherapy. As a result of the ECT, I lost large parts of my memory, including the ability to write (which had been my saving grace) and my ability to take photographs. At this time, all my children left home as well. Life held no purpose for me, and there was nothing left that the doctors hadn’t tried. I woke every morning facing blank panic. How was I going to get through this day?
Before considering the miracle of modern medicine, I would like to discuss the miracle of the atonement of Jesus Christ – which is at the base of any healing we undergo. There are a very small handful of people for whom no medical cure can be found for this disease, and they should not be left without hope. Indeed, I think it highly unlikely that medical intervention alone can succeed entirely unless it is accompanied by an understanding of the reality of the atonement.
“The Divine Void”
There is much to be learned from a prayerful study of Adam and Eve. Indeed, I believe their story is given to us as a prototype for our own lives. They were the first ones to experience what I have dubbed “The Divine Void.”
As Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, a huge empty space formed in their lives that nothing could fill – the daily discourse with and direct love of their Creator. They endeavored the rest of their lives to get back to where they had been, to have that at-one-ment. Because they had known it within living memory, they understood – much better than we – that the only way we can fill the divine void is with the divine.
Because a veil is drawn across our minds when we are born, we each have this divine void in our lives. For the very fortunate, the emptiness is filled to some extent by family who offer unconditional love, righteous role models, and instructions on how to receive forgiveness and salvation.
But most of the world is not lucky, and is left with a dark well of wrenching sadness that we can’t understand. We seek to fill it in many ways. Many good humans succeed in filling it with love and service to their fellow man – with sacrifice and selflessness. It is a paradox that the more we give from this void, the more we are filled. That is because the grace and love of Christ through his atonement are attendant on Christlike acts.
As Elder Holland said in his April, 2006, conference talk, “Broken Things to Mend:”
Trust me, learn of me, do what I do. Then when you walk where I am going … we can talk about where you are going, and the problems you face and the troubles you have. If you follow me, I will lead you out of darkness. He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows the way, because he is the way.
The atonement of Jesus Christ is the only thing that can fill that void. This is what we are offered in the Lord’s House – the last ordinances on our journey to make us whole, the at-one-ment Adam and Eve were seeking and eventually obtained.
Filling the Void
But for those of us who do not understand this idea, we seek to fill that divine void with other things, dulling our senses so we can’t feel it. We use alcohol, drug abuse, sexual misconduct, extreme adrenaline-producing activities, overindulgence in anything, or even our relationships with our friends and spouses.
Though going the latter route is proceeding in the right direction, those with abandonment issues (part of that dull ache that will never go away) take this to extremes. They sabotage all their dealings by demanding too much, shutting down in resentment, or trying to exercise control. There is after all only one friend who will never fail us under any circumstances, and that is Jesus Christ.
There is of course also the extreme criminal element that lashes out in rage. They don’t have “it” and they think they are entitled to “it,” whatever “it” is.
In order to be truly whole, we need to seek the healing of the atonement to fill our wells with living water, and then give and give and give to those who have none so that they may see the model. They are then enabled, along with us, to follow the way that was laid out for us by Adam and Eve and find our way back home to our loving Heavenly Father.
This void is endemic to our existence. It may be the greatest of all our mortal trials, because it magnifies every other trial. If we are to avoid any kind of destructive, addictive, self-defeating behavior, we must learn to fill it the way we came on earth to learn to fill it, with the atonement of Jesus Christ.
How, you ask. How do we seek the healing of the atonement? Many great discourses have been written on this subject. I attribute the beginning of my healing to the tremendous privilege of serving with my husband in the BYU 9th Stake under Stake President Thomas B. Griffith. He taught and retaught a simple principle – every lesson and talk given in the stake was to be explicitly linked to the “Root of Christian Doctrine” or the atonement of Jesus Christ. (See “The Mediator,” Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, May 1977, “The Very Root of Christian Doctrine,” Thomas B. Griffith, BYU Magazine, Fall 2006).
Thus began a wonderful journey for my husband and me as we explored, researched, and experienced all the many aspects and doctrines of the atonement.
A real turning point in my life came in the April, 2004, General Conference, when I heard a talk on the subject by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, whose special mission seems to be to testify of the atonement. (See The Broken Heart, The Believing Heart, The Belonging Heart: Deseret Book) I will never forget his words. They went straight to my heart:
We need grace both to overcome sinful weeds and to grow divine flowers. We can do neither one fully by ourselves. But grace is not cheap. It is very expensive, even very dear.
How much does this grace cost? Is it enough simply to believe in Christ? The man who found the pearl of great price gave “all that he had” for it. If we desire “all that [the]Father hath,” God asks all that we have. To qualify for such exquisite treasure, in whatever way is ours, we must give the way Christ gave – every drop He had: “How exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.”
Paul said, “If so be that we suffer with him” we are “joint-heirs with Christ.” All of His heart, all of our hearts … If we must give all that we have, then our giving almost everything is not enough. If we almost keep the commandment, we almost receive the blessings …
Some people want to keep one hand on the wall of the temple while touching the world’s “unclean things” with the other hand. We must put both hands on the temple and hold on for dear life. One hand is not even almost enough.
Reward System
This idea of giving absolutely everything to receive everything shouldn’t have been new to me, but it was. One thought in particular impressed itself in my mind. Up until that time, in order to cope with my illness, I had to operate on a reward system – my way of filling the void.
It worked like this: if I did everything I had to do in a day, then I would get to reward myself by doing the one thing in the world I wanted to do – read. Now, I’m not saying reading is evil. After all, you’re reading this book. But I carried it to excess. I read at least a novel a day. And my reading material was not always uplifting. The only thing I demanded of it was a happy ending. Though I had a Stanford education, I was reading at a comic book level. I consumed books like boxes of chocolates. The frothier, the better, as long as I could get away from the world for awhile.
During Elder Hafen’s talk, I realized that I was trying to rely on my reading literally to save my life. When I was reading, I wasn’t thinking. When I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t depressed. It seemed to work … sometimes.
He was offering me a better solution. A truly life-saving solution. If I would give up my cobbled-together substitute and seek to fill my void with the Savior’s plan for me, then I could begin to make some real progress in my life instead of just enduring.
Taking the Risk
I donated all my less-than-uplifting reading material to the library and started working at the temple two days a week. It was very difficult and demanded all that I had to give, but during those two days I knew the adversary couldn’t reach me, that I was serving God, and that I was walking where the Savior walked. I still read on the other five days of the week, but I changed my reading habits. On Sundays, I limited myself strictly to gospel reading.
The change in me was gradual at first. I realized I had a giant well of resentment and anger because I had this dumb illness that made it impossible for me to live a normal life. By this time, I had become severely crippled with anxiety and could scarcely leave the house. Going to the temple took a tremendous act of will. I was afraid of everything.
But when I entered the temple, the anxiety dropped from me like an unneeded cloak. The temple is a sacred place, and while we are performing holy ordinances there, we do so by priesthood power and we become sanctified by our service, little by little. The elderly women I worked with were angels. Learning of their often difficult lives and what they had endured and partaking of their sweet elixir of self-sacrifice and indomitable faith was very healing to my deadened spirit. Intellectually, I could see that it was possible to make it through the gauntlet of life.
I asked for duty in the Celestial Room. I used this as a time to make promises to the Lord, to plead for mercy and grace, and to return and report each week. Huge obstacles in my life began to be moved.
Elsewhere in this book you will read of my son, Greg, and his struggles with depression. My concern for him was all-consuming. Gradually, I saw my prayers answered, week by week, until after a year he was ready to serve a mission. This was a true miracle.
I began to rely with greater confidence on the atonement. With all my heart I came to believe in the scripture in Alma 7:11-12:
And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind: and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
That scripture gave me faith that the Lord wouldn’t condemn me for my weakness. It also gave me badly needed instruction – to give him problems that were too difficult to bear. When my son was struggling, I knew I couldn’t bear it. I had to rely on the Lord to take care of that burden. I was fighting so hard myself to stay alive, that I couldn’t help him.
I remember kneeling by my bed and pleading for the Lord to take care of Greg. And He did. It took longer than we both thought it would, but he was taken care of and blessed when the time was right. You will read his account later in this book.
Needing Grace
From Elder David A. Bednar, I learned about the “enabling power of the atonement.” (See “In the Strength of the Lord,” David A. Bednar, Ensign, November, 2004.) He quoted the definition of “grace” in the Bible Dictionary.
The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ … It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.
If anyone ever needed grace, or enabling power, that person was me. Once a confident economics and American politics college instructor, I was now terrified even to make a comment in Sunday School class. And yet I was the Bishop’s wife! I was expected by these cheerful, brilliant BYU students to speak at their events at the drop of a hat. I was the Relief Society advisor, of all things. There was no way on earth they could comprehend my disability. And what could I possibly say about the gospel that they didn’t already know?
Thus, I relied heavily on the enabling power of the atonement to give me the strength and ability I lacked. Soon I learned there was one thing I could preach with power: the atonement! I did so at every opportunity.
The final piece that the atonement helped me to deal with at that time, was long-needed forgiveness. Cankering my soul were the results of long-ago abuse. I thought I had forgiven the abuser, but the results of that mistreatment were still with me as a post traumatic stress disorder, so it was obvious that a full healing had not been accomplished within my spirit. In order to address this, I learned about yet another aspect of the atonement – the ability of Christ to heal the wounds in us inflicted by others and his role as mediator.
The key to this understanding was given to me in the book called The Peacegiver by James Ferrell (Deseret Book). I realized that until we fully forgive others, we do not really understand the vital role of the Savior in our lives, nor do we merit his forgiveness of our own sins. Using 1 Samuel:25, Brother Ferrell describes a little-known story that is actually a type of the atonement.
David is living rough in the wilderness with a band of men as an outlaw, on the run from Saul who seeks his life. In order to feed themselves they undertake to protect the sheep and the shepherds belonging to a wealthy man named Nabal, while they were grazing in the wilderness.
When the season is completed and the sheep are being shorn, instead of paying David and his men with the desired provisions, Nabal says, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not when they be?” (1 Sam 25:10)
Upon hearing this deeply insulting and ungrateful reply, David, the rightful King of Israel, “girded on every man his sword.” He and four hundred of his men determined to march on Nabal and kill the men in his household in revenge. But one of Nabal’s servants, who knew of the justice of David’s claim and who also knew of his intent went to Abigail, Nabal’s wife and disclosed the threat.
“Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measure of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses.” (1 Sam 25:18). Without telling her husband, she rode down to intercept David and his men.
The following account arrested my soul. “And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid.” (1Sam 25:24)
She then told David that she knew her husband to be evil, but she knew David to be a just man who was bound to be the King of Israel. She begged him to take her reparation instead of slaying Nabal and becoming a murderer. “That this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord, either that thou has shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the Lord shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid.” (1 Sam 25:31).
Brother Ferrell explains that Abigail is a type of Christ and that she is offering herself in the stead of her husband to appease David’s wrath and save him from committing murder. This story struck me profoundly. Could I look upon the Savior as the mediator between me and my abuser? Could I see Him offering recompense for all my pain and begging me on His behalf to stay my bitterness and my unforgiving heart? Could I forgive my abuser for His sake and allow Him to make His own judgment, thus not polluting my own soul with unforgiveness?
Wounded Sheep
I began to see my abuser as a wounded sheep, carried on the shoulders of my Shepherd. The Savior was looking into my eyes with desperate pleading, asking me to forgive this wounded one, who also had a claim on His love. His love for me was plain, and I knew that in order for mercy to operate in my behalf, I had to leave the wounded sheep to Him and trust in His wisdom and justice, and powers of healing. I must take care that I did not endanger my own soul and prevent my spiritual progression by being unforgiving.
It took a major change of heart, for the world does not view victims of abuse forgiving in quite this way, but how could I continue to despise my abuser when every time I thought of that person, I saw him as a wounded lamb and visualized Jesus Christ offering himself in that person’s place? A burden I did not even know I was carrying lifted from my soul and I was finally able to close the door on that chapter of my life. That was a wonderful discovery that enabled me to trust the Savior as I never had before.
Within the limitations, I was growing spiritually. The atonement was firmly in place in my life. I was not happy. I was not healed. But the Spirit did have enough power to penetrate me with the divine truth of this mighty act.
Then, suddenly, events beyond my control exposed all my worst fears and I was thrown into the worst depression of my life, all the while clinging desperately to the rock of my faith, as tormenting seas tried to pull me away forever.
Little did I realize that I had prepared myself in exactly the right way for the Lord to perform a miracle.
