The Healing Power, Passover, and the Atonement

It was a very good week. The sun has been shining all week and it has been fabulous. I am just so much happier when it is sunny. My week wasn't so busy and I am getting more hours in at work, which makes me very happy. Thursday was Pi day (3.14) and I had a TON of sugar. I had a pie shake which was delicious, a root beer float, a cupcake, a tiny powdered donut, and several slices of pie. But I was celebrating Pi day and St Patrick's day. I felt so sick afterwards. And I was pretty hyper too from all that sugar. After eating all that sugar, I don't think I want to eat sugar again for a month. Maybe two.

Friday I worked an awesome shift at work, but I'll explain that in a moment. Then I went and visited friends and we watched Say Yes to the Dress, Four Weddings, and Something Borrowed, Something New. Saturday was wonderful. I got to sleep in. Then I went to our ward's first non-FHE ward activity. We played ultimate Frisbee and ate a very big breakfast. I then went on the best bike ride ever. I followed the Provo river trail west all the way to the end. It was so far, I'm pretty sure I was in another city when I finally reached the end, but it was beautiful out and I had been determined to find the end of that trail.

I saw a snake in the middle of the trail as I was riding along (which made me very happy that I was on a bike and not walking) and I heard FROGS! There were lots of them! I couldn't see them, but I could hear them! Later I cleaned my apartment, did some homework while I attempted to tan but just ended up getting a sunburn, practiced the piano, and went grocery shopping. Then I had work at 10:00 at night, which was tiring but I got to eat some good food afterwards. It was a pretty productive day and also a very relaxing and fun one.

I have learned several things this week which have helped to strengthen my testimony. Today in Relief Society we discussed being a perfectionist and how this is an unhealthy look on life. I have been taught before that the problem with perfectionism is that you forget to apply the atonement to your life. You become so caught up in doing everything perfect, you forget that the whole reason we are here on earth is to make mistakes and then use the atonement to repent of them. While I have learned this before, I loved our lesson today because it reminded me that I should not only watch out for being a perfectionist in keeping the commandments, but I must be careful not to be a perfectionist in school. We are at school to learn and therefore make mistakes. If we didn't make mistakes in school, we wouldn't learn, we wouldn't learn how to be forgiven of those mistakes. So if I do not do well on a test, it does not mean that I am a failure at life, it is just the Lord giving me a weakness so that I can turn to him to become strong.

In my New Testament class, we also had a great lesson on Christ's healing power. I am sure many of you are familiar with the story of the woman who touched Christ's clothing and was healed. Our lesson gave new light to that story. The woman had an issue of blood. Somewhere (don't remember where) in Exodus, it says that a woman who has an issue of blood is unclean and anyone who touches her becomes unclean also. In my class we watched a video made by BYU about this story of the woman, showing her in a new light. In this video, everyone avoided the woman with an issue of blood. Because she was unclean, no one would touch her, no one would come near her. When someone accidentally caused her to drop and break her pot of water, rather than help her, they hurriedly left so as not to become unclean by touching her. The woman was alone and friendless as well as having this illness.

Then she hears the news that a man, Christ, has come who can heal you of your sicknesses. He can heal everyone. The woman anxiously tries to press through the crowd so that she can finally be healed. But she is turned away. "He cannot heal you," a man tells her. "He heals by touch." Because no one can touch her, she hurriedly leaves and seeks comfort in her home. She cries and calls out to heaven "why can he not heal me?" I was struggling not to cry myself. But then the woman stops crying as she looks at her clothing. Suddenly she knows how she can be healed. She hurries back out to the crowd and pushes her way through. However there are so many people and she cannot make it to the Master. She trips and continues to crawl through crowd. Just as Christ passes by, in desperation, she barely manages to brush his clothing with her hand. Christ stops, asks "who touched me?" and turns to find the woman kneeling in the dirt. She was healed. Not only that, but Christ picks her up, not afraid of touching her, and blesses her. It was beautiful.

This week my sister was emitted to the hospital due to complications of her pregnancy and she will be unable to go home until she has her baby. Which means several weeks. But I have faith that if the woman in the New Testament could be healed simply by touching the clothes of the Master Healer, my sister can be healed as we all reach out to the Lord and have him touch our lives.

Wow didn't realize that would be so long. And I still haven't gotten to the main thing I want to share! This week I learned about the Passover.

So for work on Friday, I was setting up for Passover, and when my shift was over, our Events Coordinator taught us about the Passover. She had us try all of the traditional, symbolic food. First we tried Matza bread. It is unleavened bread and is worse than a cracker. It has NO flavoring. It's kind of gross. And I don't know what that symbolizes. Then we were to try some bitter herbs and dip them in salt water. The bitter herbs represented the pain and suffering Christ endured in the Garden of Gethsemane and the salt water represented his tears. (I recognize these have different symbolism in the Jewish tradition.) We then had to try horseradish. If you have never tried horseradish, it smells like nail polish remover, and it absolutely burns your mouth. It is painful to eat. This represents the pain of sin, what we put ourselves through when we sin. Lastly, we ate some apple slices and grapes, sweet fruit, which represented the sweetness of having our sins forgiven through the Atonement of Christ.

Obviously the symbolism would be different in the Jewish tradition of the Passover, as they do not understand that the Passover was a symbol of Christ. But we the children of Israel do understand, and as the children of Israel, we too can participate in this ritual.

Our Event Coordinator then explained to us what the Passover was. The Passover was when the Angel of Death passed over the doors of the people of Israel. In order for this to happen however, the family had to bring into their house the first born male lamb and it had to be completely unblemished and without any flaw. They kept this lamb in their house for ten days. Our Event Coordinator explained that this lamb became like the family pet. They ate with it, they slept with it, they played with it -it lived with them. And at the end of the ten days, they had to take the family pet who was perfect and had done nothing wrong and who they loved dearly, and they had to kill it, spread it's blood over their door, and then partake of its flesh.

This all represents Christ. Christ, the first born, flawless and perfect, completely without sin. We bring him into our lives, we love him, and then He-who has done nothing wrong-dies for us and atones for us so that we can be forgiven of our sins, so that we can live again. And every week we partake of his flesh when we partake of the Sacrament.

This lesson gave so much more meaning to the Atonement and to the Sacrament. I never knew how beautiful the Passover was. I am able to appreciate the Atonement so much more now.

Well sorry for the very long post, but this is all very important to me and I wanted to share it. So happy Sunday and I hope everyone has a fantastic week.