Linked by Suffering

For many years, my mother has courageously struggled with health problems, the most difficult of which are recurring migraine headaches. While her pain has occasioned beautiful priesthood blessings and has increased our family unity, it has also required much faith, patience, and long-suffering while we have waited for the promised healing.

My perspective on my mother’s health struggles broadened after I returned from serving a mission to Panama. At that time my 17-year-old brother was also battling intense migraine headaches that left him debilitated.

Late one night I heard him crying out in pain. I approached his darkened doorway, only to pull back as I heard my mother’s soft voice from within his room. She spoke to him reassuringly, trying to soothe his cries of fear and pain. Standing outside the door, I heard his voice tense with a suffering incomprehensible to me. “Mom,” he asked, “am I going to die?”

I slowly backed away, his question tearing at my heart. But then I heard my mother, who knew exactly what he was experiencing, crying with him and telling him he would be all right.

That moment touched me, but its greater significance struck me some years later when I was preparing a lesson about the Atonement. Reflecting on the Savior’s vicarious suffering, I recalled my mother’s compassionate ministrations. My mother was better able to comfort my brother because she had felt what he was feeling; she understood his suffering. Linked to him by the pain they both had felt, she stayed ever near as he passed through his trial.

Likewise, our beloved Savior has descended below all things to an absolute understanding of our trials (see D&C 122:8). Not only has He suffered for our sins, but He also took upon Himself “the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11). Through His perfect Atonement, He knows every sickness, every affliction, and every trial we pass through. And to what end? “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” (Alma 7:12).

Observing my mother and learning of the Atonement taught me a valuable principle: sorrow and pain can teach us to nurture others in compassion and love. My mother’s example of compassion that night inspired in me a greater appreciation for the suffering our Savior went through. And in my own trials, I feel the unfailing presence of His Spirit comforting me “according to [my] infirmities”—just as my mother comforted my brother.