Healing, Suffering and Enduring

Before my surgery I received a Priesthood Blessing and was told that I would feel closer to my Savior through this experience and understand that He knows of my pains and suffers with me and will abide with me through it all. I should not have been surprised by this but was. For months I have felt like I am distant from the Lord. I have not to my knowledge committed any grave sins nor have I ceased any of the daily things that have brought me close the Lord in the past. I just felt distanced, like my testimony was stagnant. I have a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and of the mighty restoration of His church in the last days. I know that my Father in Heaven is real. I know He lives and cares about me. I feel Him in my daily life. I have had many experiences too sacred to share that make me say for sure that the God of Heaven lives, loves us, guides us, and answers our every faithful petition.
I know that His son is the Savior of the world. I know He made His great Atonement in our behalf. Little did I know my greatest lesson would come in the suffering of our youngest child.
Our little one broke is leg and is in a cast that pretty much immobilizes his lower body. The pain of the break was horrible then add the muscle spasms that torment him daily and the tummy ache the pain meds give him and you have one very sad baby boy. As I sat helplessly holding him while he endured cramping and stomach pain I realized anew the great suffering our Father in Heaven must have felt. I cannot fathom how He was able to endure it nor how He endures the suffering of so many all the time. Mental, physical and emotional pains that afflict every living soul. The longer I live and the more people I develop relationships with the more real the scope of the Atonement becomes. It is my sincere desire to endure well and lighter the burdens carried by others in anyway that I can not only to reduce their suffering but to reduce the suffering of my Savior and my God. Nothing comforted my heart more these weeks have past than the sweet friends who have come to visit us and who sent love and gifts to brighter his spirits. Healing, suffering and enduring are important  life experiences that can draw us closer to our Savior and our God if we look for their presence in our agony and extend mercy to others in their times of struggle.