Mourn With Those That Mourn

In our baptismal covenants, we promise that we "are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death" (Mosiah 18:9). It is perfectly natural to see someone in a bad way and recognize that they are no different than we are and thus, but for the grace of God we could have the same tragedy or misfortune befall us. This is a painful truth to live with and one of our brain's main jobs is to help us figure out how to avoid pain. So it is also perfectly natural to come up with a reason or justification as to why that poor soul is suffering. We start to judge them and their choices and actions because if there is something wrong with their character, and especially if we can convince ourselves that their character flaws are so much worse than ours, then maybe they deserve the pain they're going through and we don't deserve it so maybe the pain won't come to us. All of this is perfectly natural, but the natural man is an enemy to God. In our anxiety to avoid the pain that has befallen our brother or sister, we might choose to heap more pain upon them. They're the lightning rod. Let all the pain go to them. But burying our head in judgmental fantasies will not stop the pain from coming for us sooner or later. But if the pain comes for one and all and no amount of judgment or scorn or self-righteousness can halt its implacable march, then we have to come up with a different strategy. That is what our baptismal covenants are for. I will mourn with you this week, and then you can mourn with me next week. You can comfort me today when I really need it, and I'll comfort you tomorrow when you really need it. Instead of rushing to judge our neighbor in the false hope that this will protect us from harm, we can rush to our neighbor's side and help them pick up the broken pieces of their life. We can stand as a witness of God's glory and majesty as He takes something broken and fixes it and we can take comfort that when our life falls to pieces, He will fix our life too. If we want to enjoy the blessings promised in our baptismal covenants: "be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that [we] may have eternal life-" (Mosiah 18:9), then we must choose to mourn instead of scorn, choose to comfort instead of confront, choose to stand as a witness of God instead of inventing false realities for ourselves. I know that God knew this life would be harder than we could bear, and that is why he did not place us on this Earth alone, but that we could all mourn together, all comfort each other, all witness the saving grace of Christ's Atonement together.