Early last month, news outlets around the world published a heartbreaking photo of the body of a three-year-old boy who had drowned while trying to escape fighting in Syria. I initially read a few stories about the photo but didn’t click through to actually view it, not sure I could handle the heartbreak of such a terrible and intimate photo. Then a few friends posted about the photo on Facebook and it came up in my newsfeed so I could no longer avoid looking at it. This time, I clicked through and spent a moment really looking at it. I noticed his carefully chosen clothes and shoes, the way his body curved as though he were sleeping—a chilling echo of how my children look when they are sleeping in their warm, safe beds. And then I cried, mourning the loss of little Aylan and his family, and so many other children in Syria.

I wonder about the necessity of taking and publishing that photo—death should be a private, sacred moment and yet this little boy’s death was seen and discussed around the world. Then I thought of other significant photos that have also altered history. Mounds of dead bodies on battlefields and in concentration camps, hollow-eyed children huddled in migrant camps during the Great Depression, nine-year-old Kim Phuc running down the road naked and screaming after a napalm strike burned her clothes off. Should we look, and if we do look, what should we think, feel, or do? Images are powerful in their immediacy and intimacy, and generally our first instinct is to turn away and pretend we do not see.

When Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray, he asked his apostles to stay with Him and “watch” with Him. According to the account in Matthew, Jesus returned twice from praying to find the apostles asleep, and both times asked them why they could not “watch with him”. The agony He suffered had to be endured by Him alone, but his suffering was heightened by the fact that even his closest friends were not standing by as witnesses and supporters. In agony on the cross, Jesus exclaimed over feeling forsaken by even God himself. His suffering for mankind extended to include those moments when we feel most abandoned and alone, those times when our pain is magnified by the fact that no one is willing to watch with us.

The Church recently released a series of videos titled “Twelve Steps to Change”, featuring the stories of men and women who have worked to overcome addiction. The videos are frank about the terrible effects of addiction on individuals and those who love them. They are hard to watch because they detail the types of behaviors we often gloss over in narratives of sin and redemption—but this same vulnerability and honesty makes them powerful and real. I have not struggled with addiction, but watching the videos made me realize that there are dark corners of my life that I need to confront. There are parts of my innermost self that I refuse to examine closely, glancing away whenever they surface. The sincerity of the videos’ participants in describing what they went through in order to change touched my heart and inspired me to look more closely at myself to see what I still need to do to become more like my Savior.

Should we look at images of or listen to stories about suffering? Even though we may feel uncomfortable, I think that discomfort is the same discomfort a snake feels as it prepares to shed its too-small skin, or the effort a chick needs to burst out of its shell. Discomfort can be a signal that our heart is being called to expand, growing beyond its previous bounds to greater love others and ourselves. Growth is uncomfortable, but necessary, and we should not turn away when our heart invites us to change.