In seminary we talked about the converts of alma and Amulek. These faithful women and children were burned alive FOR THEIR BELIEFS while those 2 missionaries WERE FOECED TO WATCH. ITS a horrific story, one that first made a lasting impression on me in the M.TC. I asked the class why does God allow innocent people to suffer. Then came the more critical question: think of someone you know who is suffering, would you take their pain away if you could/ why?” Recently my sweet daughter said “ I want to be just like you when I grow up” I thought of all the stretching that would mean she would have to endure. In the past year I have been soul stretched in a way that reminds me of wolverine in a lab being filled with adamantium. I have passed through a fiery trial that felt as though my spirit was burning because of pain. I don’t think I asked once why me, I just wanted to pass through it in a way that would be pleasing to my father in heaven. I would have these words from elder Orson f Whitney come to mind: “no pain we suffer no trial we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education; to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility…it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation that we gain the education we came here to acquire.”
I believe that. I came to understand that during His mortal life Christ chose to experience pains and afflictions in order to understand us. Maybe I need to experience the depths of mortality in order to understand Him. Christ could have chosen to know how to succor us by revelation, but instead he chose to experience it all himself. Pain then brings me to ponder the atonement of Jesus Christ more deeply. I have asked if he would take it away, the pain, but he did not. Well, not then anyway. He allowed me to suffer just enough to appreciate His suffering on a level I could not have known without going through it. Even when the trial seemed too much to bear He would strengthen me. He was always near me, I knew that. I knew there were angels surrounding me and strengthening me from the other side.
I have learned that each of us individually, and in a way tailored to our own characters, is here for one reason. We are to become changed through the atonement of Christ, to become child like. The pain you and I experience may be where this process is most measured. Because I have felt and remember the love God, and Jesus Christ have for me I will do anything to be back in their presence. I have felt that it is those very trials I have passed through that will qualify me for this .
The righteous women and children of Ammonihah were taken out of a wicked world to rest in the presence of God. And because of their suffering the judgments of a just God will be on those wicked people, forever. I don’t know all the answers to why awful things are allowed to happen, even to innocent children, but this I do know….God is real, He loves us. He wants us to have all that he does. There is an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent being whose power and glory cannot be imagined by mere mortals. And yet he allows us to come to him in prayer, anytime, anywhere, he wants us to address him as “father” he is aware of each one of us. This knowledge can only come by personal revelation, I love that! I cannot convince you of this, God wants to tell you himself. He knows how to talk to you in a way that you will understand, and He wants his relationship with you to be personal, and individual.
Do not doubt, only believe.
