Happy Easter! This was a historic day to have an Easter Sunday Sacrament Service in our own home. We have really enjoyed this week leading up to Easter, studying Christ’s life and pondering on the meaning and blessing of the Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection. General Conference last week was just the perfect kickoff to this Easter week.
On Friday this week, I had a chance to head out to desert to go dirt biking with one my friends. Last year, shortly after getting married, one of his sons was diagnosed with ALS. It’s been an incredibly challenging trial for the family and for my friend. On the drive out to desert, we had a wonderful, spirit filled conversation as we pondered on the injustices of life, the incomprehensible scope of eternity, the power of Christ’s Atonement, the purpose of suffering, and the role of prayer.
I love this proverb, made famous by John Lennon, and quoted by President Hinckley.
Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, it’s not the end.
Sometimes people describe eternity as an infinitely long timeline stretching out forever, and mortality is just one tiny blip on that line. I’ve found another concept that I think is much more comprehensible. To us, life unfolds like a song. Each event is played out sequentially, and once the whole song is finished, we can comprehend it. Time, or the sequential unfolding of events, is a part of mortality. The Theory of Relativity describes the relationship between time and space. As an object approaches the speed light, time slows until it eventually stops. In the absence of time, life is no longer like a song or infinitely long timeline, playing out sequentially. Rather, it becomes like a picture. A picture exists in its entirety in one single moment. I believe that in His exalted state, God is able to see our lives, even our eternal existence, as one great whole. What we experience as past, present, and future, God sees as one. Thus, the pains, hardships, and injustices of life that we are experiencing sequentially become perfectly clear, understandable, and justified when viewed from an eternal perspective unbounded by the limitations of time.
Something to ponder about. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Here is one other gospel related thing I’d like to share. Trying to keep the events of the resurrection straight can be a bit tricky with all the different gospel accounts. We found this great reference that helped us in our studies.
source: https://byustudies.byu.edu/system/files/pdfs/Charts/NT/10-18.pdf
I know that my Redeemer lives. Happy Easter.
