The Surest Way to Find Joy

I was moved by Brother Steven Lund’s story of his son he told in general conference as I read it this morning. His son Tanner contracted cancer at nine and “became desperately ill. Over the next three years, modern medicine employed heroic measures, including two bone marrow transplants, where he caught pneumonia, requiring him to spend 10 weeks unconscious on a ventilator.” He recovered temporarily from this, but he was in severe pain and could barely get out of bed. Brother Lund recorded what happened one Sunday morning: “His mom, Kalleen, came into his room to check on him before the family left for church. She was surprised to see that he had somehow gotten himself dressed and was sitting on the edge of his bed, painfully struggling to button his shirt. Kalleen sat down by him. ‘Tanner,’ she said, ‘are you sure you are strong enough to go to church? Maybe you should stay home and rest today.’ He stared at the floor. He was a deacon. He had a quorum. And he had an assignment. ‘I’m supposed to pass the sacrament today…. I see how people look at me when I pass the sacrament. I think it helps them.’” So he went to church that day, seeking to help others as he painfully passed the sacrament.

Brother Lund described what happened at church this way: “It seemed that every eye in the chapel was on him, moved by his struggle as he did his simple part. Somehow Tanner expressed a silent sermon as he solemnly, haltingly moved from row to row—his bald head moist with perspiration—representing the Savior in the way that deacons do. His once indomitable deacon’s body was itself a little bruised, broken, and torn, willingly suffering to serve by bearing the emblems of the Savior’s Atonement into our lives.” I am amazed at such determination and loyal devotion to the Savior, and surely his young example should teach us about what sacrifices we should make for the Savior and the devotion we should have to be there worthily at the Sacrament table each Sunday. As we partake of the broken bread we should remember our Savior and King this way:

 

While of this broken bread

Humbly we eat,

Our thoughts to thee are led

In rev’rence sweet.

Bruised, broken, torn for us

On Calvary’s hill—

Thy suff’ring borne for us

Lives with us still.

Surely each of us too comes just a little bruised, broken, and torn from our mortal journey during the week and we must lay hold on His healing offering He has given as we seek to become like Him. As we do so, we will be led to try to serve as He did, just as this young deacon served that day. Brother Lund continued, “If we desire ‘to be like Jesus,’ we should do what Jesus does…. The Savior’s mission has always and forever been to serve His Father by saving His children. And the surest way to find joy in this life is to join Christ in helping others.”

                This is a truth that we speak of easily but which is often much harder to live in practice. But the fact remains: if we want to find true joy and overcome the struggles which leave us bruised and broken, we must learn to serve like Christ. After describing the great joy of Ammon at the end of his incredible missionary service of fourteen years and reunion with Alma, Mormon described, “Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness” (Alma 27:18). Ammon and his brethren were seekers of happiness because they humbly sought to bring others joy in the saving grace of Christ. And in seeking this happiness of those they served, they overwhelmingly found it for themselves. The Savior summarized this great gospel paradox in these words: “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:25). Like this young deacon, we can each seek happiness and relief from our own struggles by making sacrifices to serve others. Then we too can find the “enduring joy that comes only through the gospel of Jesus Christ.”