i realized that He could heal me

In 1990 we were living in the small town of Sale, in Victoria, Australia. We were happily busy with family, Church, and work commitments. On a beautiful summer Saturday just before Christmas, we decided to visit some parks and a favorite beach. After enjoying a wonderful day playing as a family, we packed everyone into the car and headed home. While driving, I momentarily fell asleep and caused a head-on car accident. After some moments of recovery, I looked around the vehicle. My wife, Maxine, had a badly broken leg and was struggling to breathe. She had a broken sternum. Our three daughters were in shock but thankfully appeared to be OK. I had some minor injuries. But our five-month-old son was unresponsive.

Amid the stress and confusion of that accident scene, our eldest daughter, 11-year-old Kate, said with urgency, “Dad, you need to give Jarom a blessing.” After some struggle, my daughters and I managed to get out of the car. Maxine couldn’t be moved. Carefully I picked Jarom up; then, while lying on the ground on my back, I gently placed him on my chest and gave him a priesthood blessing. By the time the ambulance arrived about 40 minutes later, Jarom was conscious.

That night I left three family members in the hospital and took a hushed taxi ride home with two of my daughters. Through the long night, I pled with Heavenly Father that my family and those injured in the other vehicle would recover. Mercifully, my prayers and fervently offered prayers by many others were answered. All were healed over time, a great blessing and tender mercy.

Yet I continued to have deep feelings of guilt and remorse for causing such a terrible accident. I would wake during the night and relive the horrific events. I struggled for years to forgive myself and to find peace. Then, as a priesthood leader, while assisting others to repent and helping them to feel the compassion, mercy, and love of the Savior, I realized that He could heal me.

The Savior’s healing and redeeming power applies to accidental mistakes, poor decisions, challenges, and trials of every kind—as well as to our sins. As I turned to Him, my feelings of guilt and remorse were gradually replaced with peace and rest.

Peter F. Meurs

"He Could Heal Me!," General Conference April 2023

you have a spotless future

No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future. … guard that future and remember that when the Judge shall summon [you], he will not look [you] over for medals, for diplomas, for honors, but for scars, and … that there be no stains between the scars.

Hugh B. Brown

Improvement Era, Dec. 1969, 95. As found in Of All Things, New Era. August 2002. 

neglecting the welfare of one’s own family

…my next stop: Qunu, the village where I was raised and where my mother still lived.


I roused my mother, who at first looked as though she was seeing a ghost. But she was overjoyed. I had brought some food – fruit, meat, sugar, salt, and a chicken – and my mother lit the stove to make tea. We did not hug or kiss; that was not our custom. Although I was happy to be back, I felt a sense of guilt at the sight of my mother living all alone in such poor circumstances. I tried to persuade her to come live with me in Johannesburg, but she swore that she would not leave the countryside she loved. I wondered – not for the first time – whether on was ever justified in neglecting the welfare of one’s own family in order to fight for the welfare of others. Can there be anything more important than looking after one’s aging mother? Is politics merely a pretext for shirking one’s responsibilities, an excuse for not being able to provide in the way one wanted?

 
Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Back Bay Books. 1995. p. 181

causes v. instruments of total war

The White Chrysanthemum, with space for forty orphans, stood near an American Army base; on one side was an exercise field for the soldiers, and on the other were officers’ houses. After the Korean War began, the base and the orphanage were packed. From time to time, a woman would bring in an infant whose father was an American soldier, never saying that she was the mother – usually that a friend had asked her to entrust the baby to the orphanage. Often, at night, nervous young soldiers, some white, some black, having sneaked off the base without leave, would come begging to see their offspring. They wanted to stare at the babies’ faces. Some of them tracked down the mothers and married them, though they might never again see the children.

Sasaki-san felt compassion both for the mothers, some of whom were prostitutes, and for the fathers. She perceived the latter as confused boys of nineteen and twenty who as draftees were involved in a war they did not consider theirs, and who felt a rudimentary responsibility – or, at the very least, guilt – as fathers. These thoughts led her to an opinion that was unconventional for a hibakusha: that too much attention was paid to the power of the A-bomb, and not enough to the evil of war. Her rather bitter opinion was that it was the more lightly affected hibakusha and power-hungry politicians who focused on the A-bomb, and that not enough thought was given to the fact that warfare had indiscriminately made victims of Japanese who had suffered atomic and incendiary bombings, Chinese civilians who had been attacked by Japanese, reluctant young Japanese and American soldiers who were drafted to be killed and maimed, and, yes, Japanese prostitutes and their mixed-blood babies. She had firsthand knowledge of the cruelty of the atomic bomb, but she felt that more notice should be given to the causes than to the instruments of total war.


Hiroshima by John Hersey. Vintage Books. 1989. p.121, 122

the shame of being unhurt

After crossing Koi Bridge and Kannon Bridge, having run the whole way, Mr. Tanimoto saw, as he approached the center, that all the houses had been crushed and many were afire. Here the trees were bare and their trunks were charred. He tried at several points to penetrate the ruins, but the flames always stopped him. Under many houses, people screamed for help, but no one helped; in general, survivors that day assisted only their relatives or immediate neighbors, for they could not comprehend or tolerate a wider circle of misery. The wounded limped past the screams, and Mr. Tanimoto ran past them. As a Christian he was filled with compassion for those who were trapped, and as a Japanese he was overwhelmed by the shame of being unhurt, and he prayed as he ran, “God help them and take them out of the fire…” All the way, he overtook dreadfully burned and lacerated people, and in his guilt he turned to right and left as he hurried and said to some of them, “Excuse me for having no burden like yours.”


Hiroshima by John Hersey. Vintage Books. 1989. p.29, 30

how to comfort those who grieve

Recently a woman was stunned by the news that her sister had been killed in an automobile accident. There was no preparation for this loss. In her grief and sorrow over the following months, the woman wrote, “I know all the nice things to say. I have used them myself before, but they don’t help. The pain still comes in waves that rush over me and leave me useless. If only someone would let me talk about my sister for a few hours, I believe I would feel better. Everyone wants to tell me something helpful, but no one wants to listen. I know ultimately that only the blessing of the Comforter and lots of time are going to ease the hurt.”

Later the woman wrote to a friend, “I need to know if you are disappointed in me for not handling my tragedy with greater faith, acceptance, and obedience. I’ve been disappointed in myself, but I feel like something inside me is broken and has only just begun to mend.”

There are many kinds of bereavement. Parents die, children leave the Church, husbands or wives desert their families, friends or family members are diagnosed with terminal or debilitating diseases, people lose jobs or are turned into puppets by bad habits.

Most of us would like to help, but most of us feel inadequate. So we place money in a collection envelope or send a card, thus avoiding a more personal expression of our sympathy. For some reason we feel embarrassed to show deep emotion or to be near someone who is showing deep emotion.

The Spirit can guide us to know how to comfort those who grieve. Some people want to talk about their feelings. Others need someone to talk to them. Some want visitors; others prefer solitude. Following are some guidelines:

1. Don’t say, “I know exactly how you feel.” Such a statement is never true, even if we have suffered a similar loss. It is far better to be willing to hear how that person really feels—or remain silent if the person prefers to work through the grief alone.

2. It is also tempting to say to those grief-stricken, “Don’t feel that way. Have faith. Everything will be all right.” Of course we should have faith that everything will be all right. President Spencer W. Kimball said, “When we see back from the vantage point of the future, we shall be satisfied with many of the happenings of this life which seemed so difficult for us to comprehend.” (Address given at Brigham Young University, 6 December 1955, quoted in Edward W. Kimball, ed., The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982, p. 37.) But having faith that everything eventually will be all right does not do away with our need to grieve. Even Jesus, with his perfect faith, wept when he learned of the death of Lazarus. (See John 11:35–36.)

3. We should also realize that feelings of guilt accompany grief—regret for things said and done. Guilt is useful only if it prompts us to repent. Though we may not be able to “make it up” to someone who has left mortality, we can change our attitudes and plan for better eternal relationships.

4. Do something, even though you may not know what to do. Provide a meal. Take care of the children. Iron clothes. Run errands. Listen. Pray. Pray again. One sister who lost her husband was grateful to her shy neighbor who, even though they didn’t know each other very well, came to her home and stayed with her all night and most of the next day until her daughter came. “She didn’t say much—she was just there. I was so grateful to her—it would have been terrible to have been alone.”

In our baptismal covenants we promise to be “willing to bear one another’s burdens.” (Mosiah 18:8.) This echoes the Apostle Paul’s counsel: “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another.” (1 Thes. 5:11.)


“‘Willing to Mourn with Those Who Mourn …’,” Ensign, Sep 1987, 45

do you wish to be forgiven?

Do you wish to be forgiven?

Could you accept excommunication for the sin if deemed necessary? Why do you feel you should not be excommunicated? If you were, would you become bitter at the Church and its officers? Would you cease your activities in the Church? Would you work your way back to baptism and restoration of former blessings even through years?

What have you done to prove your repentance? How much did you pray before the sin? How much during? How much since your admission of it?

How much did you study the scriptures before your trouble? How much since?

Are you attending meetings? paying tithing?

Have you told your wife or parents? Have you confessed your total sins?

Are you humble now? Is it the result of "being forced to be humble"?

Have you wrestled with your problems as did Enos? Has your soul hungered for your soul's sake? Did you "cry unto him" a day-long prayer and into the night and raise your voice high that it reached the heavens, as did Enos?

How much have you fasted?

How much suffering have you endured? Is your guilt "swept away"?



Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball. 1969. p.161 Test of Conviction A total return to the spiritual experiences seems a vital step to repentance. Loss of faith runs parallel to loss of virtue and righteousness. "Whom we serve, we love."

…eliminate guilt. I hope it goes without saying that guilt is not a proper motivational technique for leaders and teachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must always motivate through love and sincere appreciation, not by creating guilt. I like the thought “Catch others doing something right.”


M. Russell Ballard, “O Be Wise,” Ensign, Nov. 2006, 17