Gratitude day 6

Today I am grateful for the gospel. I love knowing that we can be with our families forever. This picture was taken on July 9, 2005. The day I was baptized in the LDS faith. Here is a talk I wrote after my first battle with cancer. I think it speaks highly of my belief in the church. You may recognize some bits and pieces of it from other blog posts but here it is in full.

My Gethsemane
By Derin Harvey
2006

Some years ago I came across a poem whose message caught my attention. It so intrigued me that I decided I would memorize it. It only took a few months of neglect however for the passages to fade, but the last stanza has always stayed fixed in my mind. It reads:

“All those who journey soon or late,
Must pass within the garden's gate;
Must kneel alone in the darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who cannot say,
“Not mine but thine” who only pray,
“Let this cup pass” and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane”

Just a few short months later, this passage would take on a deeper, more personal meaning. In 2005 I was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. The cancer had progressed to stage four, that being the most severe stage for ovarian cancer. Having spread into my abdomen, the cancer had quickly invaded every space available; constricting the proper function of organs, and wrapping itself around nerves and major arteries alike. The far reaching fingers of the disease had also found its way into my chest cavity, there attaching itself to my lungs. Even a small amount had deposited itself in my shoulder near my collar bone.

Over the next 6-8 months I would spend close to two months in the hospital, being operated on 5 times, and experience two grueling months of Chemotherapy. It is not an experience that I would ever want to relive. But I am grateful for the way the Lord helped me to grow during the experience.

One evening during my second week of chemotherapy treatment, I found myself resting in an over-sized armchair at my adopted family's home. I had recently returned home from having the toxic chemicals of chemotherapy run through my veins for over eight hours. Needless to
say, I was exhausted and extremely tired as the poisons continued their destructive course through my body; indiscriminately killing cancer cells and normal healthy body cells alike. As I sat there without the strength or will do do anything more than think, the question that I had repeatedly pushed aside and tried to ignore came back in greater force. Unable to cast it aside this time, I considered it. Why Me? Why was this happening to me In that very moment sorrow over whelmed me and I could do nothing more than but cry out as Joseph Smith did from the darkness of the Liberty Jail. “Oh God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?”

As the gaping hole of sorrow threatened to swallow me, the gentle and loving rebuke came to my mind, “The Son of man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” Instantly my mind has drawn to remember all the suffering the Son of Man willingly took upon himself
for me. Suffering that caused him, “even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed from every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit.' He suffered “temptations and pain of body, hunger, thirst and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death.”

Lying there in my own pain and sorrow, I gained some sense of the eternal vastness of Christ's agony and pain. And how small my suffering seemed to be when compared to that of the infinite
and eternal! What gratitude filled my heart as I thought about how he loved me so much that he willingly took upon himself my suffering and more! Peace entered my soul as I felt his love comfort and surround me.

How true Alma's words are: “And he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with Mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” I understood and felt that he truly did know what I was feeling, and going though, and he shared in my sorrow. I felt his gentle words “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion for the son of her womb? Yeah, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”

As this light and understanding lifted my heart from the depths of despair and sorrow, I felt as Alma the younger when he expressed, “and oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold: yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea I say unto you... that there be nothing as exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you... that on the other hand, there can be nothing exquisite and so sweet as was my joy.”

I learned first hand that day, that just as the atonement can make our scarlet sins become as white as a fresh white snow, it can also ease our pain and change our sorrow to hope, and peace. As we answer the Lords call to “Come Unto Him”, he truly will “ease the burdens which are put upon our shoulders, that even we cannot feel them upon our backs.”

Life will never be easy. When those difficult times come, it is up to us whether we “curse God”, as Job's wife would have had him do, or trust in the Lord and seek what it is that he would have us learn. Elder Richard G. Scott said, “ Just when all seems to be going alright, challenges of ten come in multiple doses applied simultaneously. When those trials are not the consequences of your disobedience, they are evidence that the Lord feels you are prepared to grow more. He therefore gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where he wants you to be requires a lot of stretching and that generally entails much pain and discomfort. This life is an experience in profound Trust in Jesus Christ,” Through my experience I came to understand many things about myself and my relationship with my Heavenly Father that I would not have gained otherwise.

I never did receive an answer to my question of why me? Perhaps I didn't feel I need to ask it anymore. I had been to my Gethsemane: I had knelt there and gained some sense of what Christ had done for me. I caught a glimpse of the purpose of Gethsemane. I only hope that I can continue to say, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt” and seek to be that which my Heavenly Father would have me be.