Trials? Have you known trials? Have you felt moments of despair, and abandonment, and grief over the loss of a loved one beyond understanding? There is One who understands, even One who came before you to prepare the way. Rejected by those He came to save, He cried out in pathos and agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) He suffered “temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, ‘even more than man can suffer”(Mosiah 3:7). In the inspired verses of Edna St. Vincent Millay,
“Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,—
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire…
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but (w)ould not die.”
He suffered, yes, but “Although in agony He hung,
No murm’ring word escaped His tongue.” (Eliza R. Snow) for indeed, “Jesus partook of history’s bitterest cup without becoming bitter!” (Neal A. Maxwell) My dear friend, you who have wept over the death of one you loved more than life, until you could weep no more; may the peace which surpasseth understanding descend upon you, as the dews from the heavens upon the morning grass. And know this: “If the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than He?” (Doctrine and Covenants 122:7,8)