Day 40: End of the Road

This is my last Attitude of Gratitude entry. (I promise)

Thank you for reading my thoughts, for offering me some of your own, and for the outpouring of love and support you have been for our little family throughout this journey. We love you, and thank you for your Christlike love and example.

I have so much to be grateful for. There is a lot I could write tonight, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't close this chapter of my life and this experience by expressing the feelings I have in my heart for my Savior.

The Atonement is so big. My mind doesn't wrap around it like I want it to--how does one live a perfect life? How does one always view others correctly, always do the right thing? How does one never give in to temptation, never have impure or unkind thoughts? And ultimately, how does one willingly endure brutality and buffetings at the hands of enemies, and lay down one's life for a friend? I feel like my older brother must have been cut from a very different bolt of material than I was. I don't know how he did it. But that doesn't change the fact that I know he did do it.

I know with everything I am that Jesus Christ lived the life we cannot, that he suffered deeper, longer, and harder than anything any of us have or can for that matter, and that he willingly sacrificed himself out of love for each one of us. I know that when you touch real pain--pain that breaks you down and exposes your raw edges, that is when you can come to more fully appreciate and understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the pain I felt this summer of two-thousand and ten. I am grateful now that he didn't immediately take the sting of that pain away, and that the he has left scars of sacrifice and loss to help me remember the lonely road he walked alone.

"...because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said: “I will not leave you comfortless: [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you]."
[Jeffrey R. Holland, “None Were with Him,” Ensign, May 2009, 86–8]


This is the end of this particular road for me. I am grateful that I didn't walk it alone.

Love,
Hillary