The last few weeks have been difficult for me (for many of us, I think): I have wrestled with the new church policy, cried watching footage of the bombings in Beirut and Paris, and the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis has wrung my heart.

I’m not here to offer pat answers or solutions–I don’t have them myself. But I did find a tender mercy this past weekend in the form of a member of my bishopric, who asked me to give a talk on finding peace through the Atonement. The process of preparing that talk reminded me of some truths that I needed, and would like to share here.

Sometimes peace through the Atonement comes as we rely on repentance and forgiveness to heal the wounds we’ve caused through our own mistakes.

But sometimes–often–such peace comes purely gratuitous, as an act of grace.

I love these verses in Alma 7:11-12:

11 And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.

12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; 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.

The English word “succor” means “to give help or aid,” but it stems from a Latin word meaning “to run or hasten in aid of.” In other words, Christ’s deep compassion, stemming from his sacrifice, sends him running to our aid.

I love Chieko Okazaki’s perspective on the atonement, from her book Lighten Up!

“We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.

“Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. . . . His last recorded words to his disciples were, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. . . . He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been lower than all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.”

As I re-read this passage in preparing for my talk, I was overcome by the depth of God’s love for me–for all of us. (Confession: I did not make it through reading this passage over the pulpit without crying. I needed this message–and from the number of people who approached me afterward, I was not the only one).

That the Atonement makes my own suffering easier to bear does not absolve me from mourning with those that mourn, or reaching out in compassion to those who suffer. It does not undo the terrible things that happen, the very real grief that people feel.

But it does offer a point of light in dark times, strength when we feel weak, hope when there appears to be none.

For this, in this season of gratitude, I am profoundly grateful.