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| Witness [message #1646] |
Wed, 19 December 2012 16:25  |
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rdwhitaker
Messages: 118
Registered: December 2012
Location: Vancouver, Washington
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Senior Member |
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I received a call from a raspy sounding Sister Smith. She was calling me, her District Leader, to report that both she and her companion were ill and wanted Priesthood blessings. My junior companion, still quite fresh from the MTC, followed wide-eyed as we knocked on the Sisters' apartment door. I had never been inside of a Sister's apartment, and I felt a little uneasy being there. Should we have met them at the chapel, instead? Too late to reconsider, the door was already open and we were invited in. One look at the poor Sisters and I knew they would not have fared well trying to walk all the way to the chapel in their miserable condition.
My companion, grateful to be able to speak English instead of the elusive foreign language he was still trying to master, was to be voice for the blessing upon the junior Sister companion. I anointed and he did a nervously admirable job in blessing her. He then anointed Sister Smith and I placed my hands upon her head to perform the sacred task.
After the obligatory few opening words, I felt something I had never experienced before. It was as if I had taken a sideways step from my body and from the scene and had become a mere observer. I was not aware of thinking about any of the words; it was as if I was hearing them for the first time the moment they were spoken. As I continued to observe the blessing of Sister Smith unfold before my eyes, I sensed a power vastly beyond my own guide and direct me, using me as a conduit for His healing power. I sensed a presence of love far beyond anything I had ever imagined love could be -- it dwarfed my understanding of the word's meaning. I would almost rather describe it as a calm and steady exhilaration, such powerful intensity coupled with absolute sweetness and gentleness.
For a few, brief moments, I saw and understood eternal truths with a pure and simple clarity. Simple ideas I had heard many times before became blatantly obvious to me. Yes! Jesus Christ was the way, the truth, and the life - not just morally or spiritually, but literally so. I sensed and saw His eternal uniting force, the Light of Christ, as if it were a golden, steadily radiating stream going out in all directions, permeating all things and everything that was composed of any degree of matter, from the smallest particle to the largest celestial body. This constant light gave coherence, definition, life, balance and reason to an innumerable myriad of galaxies, stars, planets, moons, creatures, bodies, plants, organs, and cells. I witnessed how His power truly was in and through all things - how it gave life, movement, and united all things. I sensed His ability to touch, feel, understand and fill all of His creations. I knew the Atonement was real. It seemed to be an immense force, like a super-galactic bubble that held and sustained us all without our even being aware of the universality, extent, or depth of its existence. All of this came to my understanding in one brightly illuminated, unobstructed fact, which I understood with a clarity I had not imagined possible before. With this knowledge, came an absolute certainty that I - we - could trust the Savior implicitly and put our full faith and reliance in Him. I was surprised at how deep, extensive, universal, complete, and intimate was his power and His love for all things, and especially for us who are created in His image.
As the blessing progressed, I realized I couldn't tell if my feet were still touching the floor or not - I felt so much out of my body! I almost peeked to see.
Though I'm not sure of the exact moment when it happened, I felt and almost saw the healing of Sister Smith take place within those few brief moments of the blessing. I sensed cellular and molecular changes occur -- the truth and light that flowed through me not only seeking out any and all problem areas, but washing her entire being clean, physically as well as spiritually, there, in that moment, in an instant. I knew she had been healed beyond what I expected, more thoroughly, more minutely, more totally. Her healing did not just make a problem better -- it made all problems go away.
Then, the purpose for the blessing having been accomplished, I regretfully left the marvelous scenes I had beheld and had to complete the closing words. In awe I invoked the name of my Savior whose infinite power I had just witnessed and shared a small part of. The feelings I had just experienced momentarily before were already quickly subsiding as my companion and I said our farewells. I knew I would not be able to retain my memory of them in all their brightness; only that I would know that I had experienced such things. As I shook hands with Sister Smith, I knew that she knew she was now whole, and pure, and forgiven - of what I don't know - washed clean even down to a basic cellular level.
How dearly I know that my Savior lives, loves, and is with us always, and knows and sustains us in ways we cannot imagine or comprehend. We are taught that the Holy Ghost flees when we sin and we lose His presence and influence; but the Savior never flees, He never abandons us. He is so much a part of us that we drag him with us through the depths of each of our sins and mistakes. He is always present. He is a part of our physical being through the ever-reaching and all-feeling power of the Light of Christ. He sees, knows, and feels every aspect and every detail of every experience we go through, whether those experiences are by our own choice or someone else's. Christ knows every aspect of sin and He knows all of its effects on us. He has already experienced it all, and He experiences it anew with each of our acts of sin and mistake. How sorry I am that I have made Him have to relive each thing I have done that was not good. Yet, despite our weaknesses, sins, mistakes and flaws, I also know that His great love eclipses, surrounds, and envelopes us, each of our little moments plus the sum total of our existence.
How much I know we can be fully confident in Him, His words, His promises, His example, His servants, and His church. How I look forward to a day when I might be embraced by that Being who generates such purity, love, healing, goodness and life! It is my witness that He is real, all-understanding and compassionate, personable with each of us, and that He is capable of bringing to pass all of his words and works. He is fully worthy of our full faith and trust in Him. Moroni's invitation stands as a clarion call to each of us:
"And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever. Amen." Ether 12:41
This experience I share with you in all humility and joy, in His sacred name, even Jesus Christ. Amen.
humbly, and laying bare my most precious experience,
rdw
Don't . . . Quit . . . Trying!!
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