Life in Our World - "the darkest hour is just before dawn"

When I was eighteen, my neighbor's nine-year-old daughter died from leukemia. In a letter she wrote to me a few years later, she said, “After you lose a child, Easter becomes the best holiday of them all. It’s the one I look forward to most.”

I thought about Thanksgiving with its tribute to our blessings, peace and prosperity. I even considered the Fourth of July with its rousing appreciation for a great nation at peace with so many freedoms. I thought of Christmas with celebrations of the birth of Christ and angels announcing “Peace on Earth, good will to men.”

But, I understood that she meant that even those wonderful and significant holidays don't offer the same peace and hope that the Savior's empty tomb held. For my neighbor, the fears and grief that may have bothered her throughout the year were swallowed each Spring as she celebrated the hope that is born of the resurrection.

My neighbor passed away from cancer several years ago, but each Easter season I remember her words, “(When you lose someone you love) Easter becomes the best holiday of them all.” I sensed her peace in that letter and in her life.  I agree.  Easter is the light after the dark, the joy after the despair.

But before there was the hope of an empty tomb, there had to be the dark hour of Christ's cross and death.    

These four minute videos help you feel what my grossly inadequate words cannot.  Each video can help us better appreciate the Savior's offer. 

The Atonement of Jesus Christ was not only fundamental to my neighbor but to all Christianity. It is completely encompassing and yet very, very personal as the power of the Savior adapts to our individual needs. The power of the Atonement is something that we can feel deeply and personally. He died for each . . . and all.