That I May Heal You

With my nudging, my twelve-year-old son recently joined the mountain bike team like his older brother. Yesterday I dragged him up to a trail and insisted that we do a little practice. We planned to do some loops on a trail he likes. On our second lap I heard an “Ow!” up ahead of me. I found that he had fallen to the side of the trail, and from my perspective it looked like he had received a scrape to his leg. He seemed okay and we continued riding. A little later we looked at his leg more closely and discovered it was not exactly a scrape—he had a ton of little pricklies in him. It turns out that he had fallen on a prickly pear cactus. I took him home and my wife tried multiple remedies to get the hundreds of cactus spines out of one leg. She put duct tape on pulled it off—that got some of them. She tried Elmer’s glue, letting it dry and pulling that off, and that got some more. But ultimately for the majority of them she had to use tweezers to pull them out one by one. It was a painstaking process and even caused her to get some stuck in her hand in the process. She is now seriously questioning my wisdom in having our boys do mountain biking!

I was grateful, though, that my son’s injury wasn’t in the same location on his body as Elder Scott D. Whiting who recounted his experience in general conference last year. He was also twelve years old, and on a campout in his haste to run away and hide after a prank he likewise found a prickly pear cactus: “As I crouched down to the ground, I felt a searing pain. In the darkness and in my haste, I had sat upon a prickly pear cactus.” He continued, “The remainder of that night, I lay on my stomach in a tent while my father, using pliers, removed the cactus spines from my … well, let me just say that I did not sit comfortably for several days afterward.” One of his messages from his story is that we should not try to hide from our transgressions but instead we should treat them immediately: “If you incur a physical injury, your condition will deteriorate and may become life-threatening if you don’t seek proper medical attention. That is true for spiritual wounds as well. Only, untreated spiritual wounds may threaten your eternal salvation. Don’t hide from those who will love and support you; rather, run to them. Good bishops, branch presidents, and leaders can help you access the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” My son of course did not hide from what happened to him, but we did realize that it had to be taken care of immediately and all credit goes to my wife who played the role of doctor while I was in and out running around other children last night. And it took great trust on his part to let her work on him—and it didn’t come without some screams and a little trauma!

The Savior invited the Nephites in these words, “O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life” (3 Nephi 9:13-14). In our experience yesterday my wife was like the Savior, inviting my son to come and be healed through her patient extraction of all of the cactus spines. One of the lessons for me was that it is not always an easy process, even to be healed by the Savior. Through there are indeed miraculous physical healings that take place in the scriptures seemingly quickly, I don’t think those are meant to suggest that it will always be easy for us to be healed by Him or overcome sin or make the improvements we need to make in our lives through Him. I think these words from the Savior describe well the process: “Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected.” We must continue patiently with His grace and healing to ultimately be perfected. Though we want to be able to use figurative duct tape or Elmer’s glue to pull out all our sins and weaknesses in one great effort, instead we usually find that we must let Him help us patiently extract them one by one. Only gradually will we be able to fully “strip [ourselves] from jealousies and fears, and humble [ourselves] before [Him]” to overcome “the natural man” and the “carnal mind” to ultimately “abide the presence of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 67:10-13).