As You Have Been All Your Life

It was the second day of my new job. The second day of work after not working for two and a half years. I was excited for this new job – a dream job, really – and to have a new purpose; for the chance to earn a paycheck and pay my bills and move forward… But somewhere between day one of work and day two a cold I’d suffered from and thought I’d overcome the previous week returned and turned into a nasty case of hacking, sniffling, not-sleeping, not-breathing, fever-ridden bronchitis. After a sleepless night I woke on work morning two feeling the stubborn need to go into work because I was a work greenie and needed to prove myself, or something like that. So of course I decided to go into work. Because I’m stubborn. And kind of dumb (okay, really dumb) when I’m sick.

But even through the dumb feverish stubbornness I knew my only chance at making it through the day was a priesthood blessing. So I asked for one and consequently received one. It began like most priesthood blessings do and then immediately went on to say something about how ‘the Lord was pleased that I was faithful to my covenants, as I had been all my life.’

As I had been all my life.

The phrase truly gave me pause. And in one of those slow-motion moments I truly wrestled with that phrase. Sure I hadn’t committed any “big” sins in my life. But still I didn’t feel that I qualified for that statement – of being called ‘faithful all my life.’ Even though I’d repented I knew that sometimes I’d been downright purposefully oblivious of my covenants; sometimes rebellious toward them. And there was a whole section of my life when I didn’t tend them – didn’t cultivate growth through them and thereby regressed.

The clarity of hindsight demands I interweave another train of thought into this story: Three years ago I attended a fireside with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. During his talk he said, “Don’t you dare blaspheme by forgetting that the Lord loves you.”

Blasphemy is a big word for an idea with potentially eternal consequences – that by our words or actions we insult or show contempt for God or things considered sacred. Do we understand the profound implications of Elder Holland’s statement? The Lord LOVES us. Therefore He wants us to grow. For that reason He created the Plan of Salvation and this earth and sent us here to learn about obedience and long suffering, faith and patience and about how completely inadequate each of us are on our own. And because the Lord of hosts, the mighty God – our Father in Heaven LOVES us, he wants us to come home again. But because no unclean thing can come into His presence and as mortals we are wholly imperfect he ALLOWED our eldest brother to live perfectly and be brutally martyred, then break the bonds of death to redeem for our sins to make us again whole, unblemished and worthy to stand in his presence. To willfully forget, or not allow the process of the atonement to work fully so that through the love of God we are continually made totally perfect and whole is, therefore… purposefully continuing to open a wound that should have closed. Insult. Contempt. Blasphemy. Is that really the message we want to send to God?

Powerful stuff.

Back to present time: As I sat there in that slow-motion moment on morning two of my new job feeling guilty and horrible I felt the worthy priesthood holder who stood with his hands on my head actually pause because of my feelings of guilt. And then that amazing, in-tune priesthood holder did something that changed everything for me.

He repeated what he’d said.

As you have been all your life.

Clarity began pouring in like a pillar of light. It was true. Because my Savior suffered, bled and died for me. Because I’d put the atonement to work in my life. Because of Him, my indiscretions didn’t count against me. No. More than that. Jesus Christ, my eldest brother, cleansed me and my life so thoroughly with His blood that the Spirit of the Lord could truly pronounce in a blessing for me that I had been faithful all my life. As though the years of indifference and stumbling had never happened in His eyes. And because I was clean I needed to stop feeling guilty and rehashing sins for which the price had already been paid.

One second I knew I hadn’t been faithful all my life. And then in the next I knew that I had. As though a light switch had been flipped. The Lord did not see fit to heal my body that morning. In fact I spent the rest of my first week out sick. But the Lord did heal my mind, my heart and my soul, completely during that blessing. That is the power of the atonement. That is the gift of the atonement at work. Though your sins be as scarlett they may be as white as snow...

Let us not forget. Let us be healed, cleansed and made new and go forth with faith and confidence in that worthiness which the Lord bestows upon us because He loves us.