Line upon Line

In the summer of 2003, I had just graduated from college and held my first job as a college graduate. I had a church calling I loved, I studied my scriptures and prayed, and I attended the temple regularly. I was doing everything I needed to do to be happy and to progress toward exaltation.

One typical carefree evening, after a service activity,  I became the victim of a terrible crime. It was a crime so devastating that for years afterward I referred to it as “the night I died.” In fact, my very first thought afterward was that I wanted to take my own life rather than go through life with that evil and nauseating memory in my brain. It was only through a miracle that I was prevented from following through on that plan, and it was not initially clear to me that that miracle was a blessing. I was no longer alive in the way I had been before—cheerful, experimental, happy to be on earth and looking forward to the future. I was now the living dead. I went to work, I went to church, I served in my demanding calling, and even still went to the temple regularly, but all in the dullness of despair.

Because I understood the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the need for forgiveness, and the beautiful power of repentance, I worked and prayed diligently to forgive my perpetrator. I knew that judgment and God’s forgiveness must come from God, but that I must also forgive. It took six months of intense fasting and prayer for me to forgive the man who had hurt me so selfishly. I never saw him again, and I set boundaries so that I never would, but my heart was cleansed of the anger I felt toward him.

It was definitely an improvement to be freed from that soul-draining anger. But, as much as I would love to tie a bright red bow around that story and say that all was well, that I was immediately happy again, that I was restored to myself—that’s not what happened.

My life was still a pale shadow of living. I still thought about “the night I died”, even as I faithfully fulfilled my church callings, said my prayers, studied the scriptures, and attended the temple regularly. I was doing “all the right things”. And yet, utter loneliness, fear, and despair engulfed me. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and still this horrible thing had happened to me, had killed my happiness, had alienated me from my friends, my family, and my own body. No one in the world could fully understand what I had endured and how it had affected me. I was alone.

Even worse, in all my reading and in discussion with others in similar situations, it became clear to me that the damage would be permanent. Victims of this kind of crime can carry the trauma forever. They do not recover.

It was difficult to have joy in the gospel when I, who had done nothing wrong, was nevertheless condemned to a living death because of someone else’s sin. I, who had so faithfully struggled to forgive—and who had succeeded!—was still never going to be happy again. The injustice was overwhelming; I felt enveloped by emotional and spiritual darkness.

About three years after the incident, I lamented to my sister that the spiritual emptiness was crippling. I spoke of feeling dead, of what it was like to endure life with no hope. I mourned, and expected her to just mourn with me. But instead she said: “Your problem is not that this happened to you. Your problem is that you don’t believe in the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ to help you.”

I was shocked.

Of course I believed in the power of the Atonement! It was the power to forgive sin, and I had absolute confidence in His ability to do so. I had already used the Atonement to its limit when I forgave the man who destroyed me. I had absolute confidence in the beautiful power of repentance and had used it in other areas of my life. But in this scenario, I had nothing to repent of. How was the Atonement of Jesus Christ going to help me?

Her words, unexpected though they were, started me on a new path. I began to study the Atonement of Jesus Christ, searching—not just reading—the scriptures and words of the living prophets. I learned that, through means I do not fully comprehend, Jesus Christ not only suffered for our sins, but He felt our pains. The prophet Isaiah taught, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows…with his stripes we are healed.”^[1]

I soon realized that, if Jesus Christ had truly borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, then He knew exactly how I felt.  I was not alone. True, there was not one person among my friends and family who could understand how I felt or what I had been through. But there was Someone who did.  My Savior Jesus Christ knew exactly how I felt, and had the power to remove the pain of betrayal and ease the sting of memory. He can do more than forgive sins. He can make all things right, even for those who are the victims of sin.

It was not long before I  began to rediscover happiness and hope for the future. I was no longer alone, nor enveloped by spiritual and emotional darkness. I learned that my Savior truly bore my griefs and carried my sorrows;  his wounds could heal my broken soul. He could return me to the land of the living. And He did. I was brought back to life.

It was a miracle. But again, although I would love to tie this in a neat red bow and say that from that moment on I was fully restored to myself, with no lingering effects or remaining struggles, that’s not how it happened. I was immensely better! But I continued to struggle with an inability to trust others, or to feel safe around men, or to consider dating and marriage with anything other than fear. I didn’t immediately become whole. In fact, it was a further twelve years before I fully recaptured trust and safety. That was a long decade spent faithfully fulfilling my callings, studying the scriptures, praying, and attending the temple, while still struggling with the most basic social encounters.

Twelve years is a long time, but it is also not never. And it was twelve years during which, although I struggled, I felt alive and known and understood and accompanied in my healing.  I put forth a great personal effort: fasting, praying, pleading, searching, working, and healing with complete trust in my Savior. At a steady pace, the remaining darkness in my soul dissipated.

Finally, at long last, I felt fully healed, through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

My situation was unique to me; others are different and react differently. I was slower to heal than some, faster than others. Unfortunately, there were some who criticized me for being so afraid and broken for so long. This did not, it turns out, help me to progress any faster.

There is no set timeline for grief. There is no set timeline for healing.

Every trauma is as individual as the person who experiences it, and each road to healing is likewise unique. But none of these roads need to be traveled alone. There was One whom I knew would never criticize me for working through my grief and healing process in the way and in the timeframe that I needed to: my Savior Jesus Christ. Through the healing years, He knew how I felt every step of the way. And I felt Him with me as I worked diligently to heal. I know, with Jesus Christ, I am never alone. And because of Him, I feel whole.

In 2020, to celebrate my complete healing, I purchased a ring in the shape of a flower. It reminds me every day that the world is beautiful and joyous. It reminds me that my trauma belongs to me; I am not its victim, but its owner. The flower symbolizes for me that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. It reminds me that though I was dead, I am now alive again, because of Him.

                                                   ———-

My message, to anyone who needs it, is twofold.

First, healing is possible. You can be restored to what you were, to greater and better than you were, through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Do not believe the voices of the world that tell you you are permanently broken. The Atonement was undertaken for you. Jesus Christ is more powerful than your trauma.

Second, you cannot look to anyone else to indicate how long that healing and restoration should take. Your healing is not “fake” or imperfect if it happens quickly. Your healing is not faithless or flawed if it takes years or decades. Walk alongside the Savior and your healing will be what it should be.

^[1] Isaiah 53:4-5, my emphasis