April: Easter
My testimony of the Savior has changed me. It delivers me from daily sins, minor transgressions, and worldly depression. Because of my faith in Him, I have a belief in the resurrection, which gives me hope that I will see my parents again, even though they have passed on from this life to the next. I have a testimony that they are still living, and I look forward to the day when we are reunited once more.
This faith sustains me and buoys me up when I am down and helps me rise above the worldly messiness of everyday life. My faith in Christ changes my perspective about myself, so that I look forward to the person I am becoming. C. S. Lewis explained God’s transforming power this way: “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably. … You thought you were [being] made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”1 I know that the mansion He prepares for me will be much greater and more beautiful than my own limited dreams and plans.
Another analogy that helps me understand Christ’s Atonement and His power to polish me is a rock tumbler. I bought one for my grandson because he loved collecting rocks. We put stones into the tumbler that were dirty, rough, and muddy. These rocks did not look like anything anyone would want to keep. Yet after weeks of tumbling, the rocks came out shiny, beautiful, and distinctive. Life may throw us around and buffet us, yet if we look to Christ and follow His way, then we will show our true, heavenly colors, and end this earth life brilliantly.
Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge (Oct. 2008 GC) described it this way: “The Lord’s way is not hard. Life is hard, not the gospel. ‘There is an opposition in all things,’ everywhere, for everyone. Life is hard for all of us, but life is also simple. We have only two choices. We can either follow the Lord and be endowed with His power and peace, light, strength, knowledge, confidence, love, and joy, or we can go some other way, any other way, whatever other way, and go it alone – without His support, without His power, without guidance, in darkness, turmoil, doubt, grief, and despair. And I ask, which way is easier?” I know which way I choose. I choose the Savior’s way. His way is the easiest way on this earth.
My testimony also gives me courage to stand up for Christ. I can bear testimony of Him to others, enabling them to find His strength and transforming power in their lives as well. As I help others find Christ, my testimony is further strengthened. This is how I become His disciple, His follower, and His daughter, entering into His family.
Elder Holland (April 2009 GC) asked us to stand by Jesus Christ and be His witness to others, rather than being silent or denying His sacrifice for us: “[My] plea at Easter time is that these scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. … As we approach this holy week—Passover Thursday with its Paschal Lamb, atoning Friday with its cross, Resurrection Sunday with its empty tomb—may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. …[T]hat is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.”
This Easter, I will stand by Christ. I will remember the testimony of Peter, who served with Christ and continued to bear testimony of Christ until his dying day: “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (2 Peter 1:16-17) Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer. He is the way, the easiest way, for me to make it through this life and return to Him.
1 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1960), 160.
Women Read Scripture 