I was grieving, in acute pain, when I once sought refuge in the temple. I was hoping to keep my troubles private, but a bleeding heart leaves a trail. Sister C, a temple matron and Relief Society friend, sniffed me out. Her kind inquiry was all I needed to burst into tears.
“My dear!” she cried in alarm, “have you laid this at the Lord’s feet?”
Remembering all my prayers, I said that I had.
“But dear,” she continued as she looked into my wet face, “you didn’t leave it there!”
I was stunned. She was so right.
After hearing the truth from Sister C, I felt suddenly tired of the pains which had plagued me too long. It took a few more days of introspection, and then I finally cast my burden on the Lord, gushing out my angst in torrents of sorrow, with a passion and abandon I’d not given into during previous prayers: “This is too big and too complex for me, dear Lord,”I begged, and then, echoing Alma,I cried within my heart: "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me....” (Alma 36:18)
What followed was one of the most profound experiences of my entire life. Like a wild, raging river that suddenly, gently ebbs into a bubbling brook, my pain just melted away. I sat very still, hesitant to breathe. It was over.
I felt it deep in my bones.
That was many years ago. I do regret things past and some of the consequences live on. But I am free of self-recrimination (Alma 36:17-19).That is part of the peace package: the assurance that the Lord Himself would eventually bind up loose ends; the unraveling which is beyond my ability to sew up. He is the Master and will make something colorful and coherent and out of mismatched, even raggedy, remnants.
The threads of mercy are the strongest and most beautiful of all.
