something about empathy

I've been thinking about pain. Pain, my old friend, you are so familiar to me now. I know every crook and crevice in your face. Come sit for awhile.

I'm learning how to be happy even if, and especially when, I do not have everything I want. Because guess what? I probably will never have everything I want, not in this life. That's not how it was meant to be.

And now, my sons [and daughters], remember, remember, that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you, to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." 

Today in class I taught my students about the "so what?" question. That is to say, "what's the point of this? Why am I still reading this essay? How does it apply to me?" And don't the prophets ask us all the time to ask that very question of ourselves--so what?

Trials are going to come. The devil "shall send forth his mighty winds." That much is inevitable. But something else is inevitable--the devil shall not win. In fact, he already lost. He lost a long time ago when Christ overcame for everyone, individually. And it is upon His shoulders that we can cry if we need to. We can run to him for relief. We don't have to do it alone. We don't have to do it alone. That's the answer to today's "so what?" question.

This matters because you matter.

I'm learning that pain doesn't have to be our own for us to feel it. That sometimes humans just need to sit and like, cry. Just cry or close our eyes against the pain pushing down on us. That there is such a thing as "raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness." You know it when you see it. You can feel its cosmic pull. It's like...well, it's like charity. And it's what makes us weep when we see those we love in pain. 

I need the Atonement for those times, too. When I want to carry someone's burden but simply cannot.  He makes up for my shortcomings in succoring. 

So I'll be grateful for that today.

"No love is ever wasted. Its worth does not lie in reciprocity." Neal A. Maxwell