Bearing All Things
The Pauline admonition about bearing and enduring (1 Corinthian 13:7), as reiterated by the Prophet Joseph (13th Article of Faith), is a cogent cue that, after all said and done, life is yoked with pain.
The oft tormented Emily Dickinson, with the anguish of poets, understood that inevitableness and poignantly asked for excuse from pain and, if that’s not possible, anodynes, followed by unawareness, followed by the liberty to die (The Heart Asks Pleasure First).
Who can fault Dickinson, or not lament with her, or those who suffer tremendously and sue for escape?
Paul’s counsel to embrace bearing is hard. And it’s harder yet when it asks that we bear all, for all is open-ended. It includes everything and anything. It encompasses the undeserved and the unexpected, and the unreasoning. It becomes unconditional.
O the things we bear (even without counting the self-inflicted): The struggle of making a living, the daily distresses, the recurring bad luck, the undoing of a loved one, helplessness, loneliness, offenses, abuse, betrayals, false accusations, contention, abandonment, poverty, confusion, depression, silence, failures, rejections, regrets, sicknesses, injury, growing old, paralysis, grief, sorrow, losses, separation, death. That’s not all, only the burden of an ordinary mortal’s existence. But all are real; all are heavy.
Dickinson, knowing that excuse from pain was impossible, turned to other prospects which, being earthbound, unavoidably became moribund. Paul, knowing that the bearing can be unbearable, that, despite our best efforts, there is often no other way than bearing, turned heavenward instead, and invoked believing all things and hoping all things.
Believing Christ and all that He taught and promised. Putting all our hopes in Christ and looking forward to Him and His kingdom.
Still, there are extraordinary times, as in the act under the cross where they affixed our Savior, where beliefs turned hollow, and hope fell to pieces, and all we can do is to look up to Him, weeping. Yet it is also in those times that we may most keenly see our innocent, wounded Lord, and our heart breaks with His breaking (or the other way around), and we suffer what He bears (or the other way around) and our spirit, despite our flesh, cries out and says: “I, too, will bear.”
And so it is, Christ’s bearing all is He bearing for all. And so it seems, we bearing all (as opposed to bearing) is we knowing and becoming Him who bore all. And in the suffering and the “at-one-ment” of the Bearer and bearers, a higher mortal and a demi-god emerge, for they are indeed astonishing, bearing crosses like Christ, even partaking bitter cups without being bitter.
To my hero and exemplar brothers and sisters who are backbreakingly, heartbreakingly heavy laden: as some of you allowed me humbling glimpses into what you bear, I have no words, only tears, and a pointing to Paul, who points to his and our Lord, in whom all our faith and hopes meet, even He who will, when this is over, prepare us for our next encounter with all—the receiving of all that the Father hath (D&C 84:38).
Akron Ohio Stake News 