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What
are some of your thoughts and feelings about the Savior, Jesus Christ?
Take some time to reflect and provide a thoughtful
response, a paragraph or more.
My understanding of Jesus Christ is most poignant and thorough when I
am actively using His atonement in my life. I have spent years studying His
works and His example, and I understand Him in intellectual sense. That
understanding is very powerful in so many ways – for example, when I have spent
too much time scrolling online and I need His truth spoken to me clearly. His words
and example are like a light that shines through the murky world of false and incomplete
wisdom. However, I think there is understanding that extends past what my brain
can fully grasp right now. I think we are all blind babies in our understanding
of universal, eternal truth and will always be with our very limited, temporary
brains. I think there is a vast chasm between my intellectual capacity and God’s
intellectual capacity – as vast as the universe. So, even Christ’s words and
example can only take me so far.
When I actually acknowledge how imperfect I am, how limited my understanding
is, how even my good intentions can be harmful sometimes, and I turn to Christ with
that acknowledgement, I can feel His power and perfect understanding wipe away
all my imperfections and replace my despair with peace, hope, and charity. That
is what the atonement means to me – that I can simultaneously realize that I am
weak while also having the power and strength to carry on in hope. The feeling
of using the atonement can’t be fully captured in words. I feel it with my spirit – the part of me that
lived with God before, lives now, and will live forever. When I turn to Christ
with a “broken heart and contrite spirit,” that part of me receives the eternal
light that gave me the courage to choose to come to earth, the light that gives
me the love I need to carry on God’s work, and the light that tells me I will
see my deceased mother again. Christ’s atonement is most real to me when I act
on it, by turning to Him for help, over and over and over again.
