Understanding the Fall is essential to understanding how much the Savior loves us.
Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin
When we find ourselves facing trials and challenges, it can be tempting to feel alone or forgotten. Sometimes, it seems that no one is watching out for us. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland focuses on this concern in his April 2015 general conference address, “Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet.”
He shares a story of two brothers—14-year-old Jimmy and 19-year-old John—who went rock climbing and found themselves on a steep rock wall . . . without any safety gear. After helping Jimmy scramble to safety, John told him to look for a tree branch to extend to John. However, John “knew there was nothing of the kind on this rocky summit. It was only a desperate ruse. If my jump failed, the least I could do was make certain my little brother did not see me falling to my death.” In a last-ditch effort to save his life before his arm strength gave out, John leaped, trying to grab the ledge and pull himself up.
John later explained, “I felt my fingers begin to recede slowly over the sandy surface. I knew my life was over. But then suddenly . . . two hands shot out from somewhere above the edge of the cliff, grabbing my wrists with a strength and determination that belied their size.” It was Jimmy, who had stayed by the cliff’s edge, knowing what John might try to do. John adds, “He grabbed me, held me, and refused to let me fall.”
Elder Holland teaches that, like John in this story, we are all in need “of brotherly hands and determined arms that reached into the abyss of death to save us from our fallings and our failings, from our sorrows and our sins.” Christ has saved all of us, his brothers and sisters, and continues to save us today. Elder Holland promises that the more we understand about “Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all the consequences that fall carried with it,” the more we are able to appreciate the significance of Christ’s Atonement in our own lives. We can know that he is there and that he loves us.
Read Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s full talk, “Where Justice, Love, and Mercy Meet,” to learn more about how Christ can save you.
Source: LDS General Conference
—Naomi Hurd, Mormon Insights
feature image by Marco W.
Find more insights
Read Elder Bradley D. Foster’s talk “Trials, Tribulations, and Trust in the Lord” to learn more about how other people have overcome their hardships.
Watch “The Hope of God’s Light,” a Mormon Message about one man’s incredible journey to find faith when he felt like no one was there.