When the jaws of hell gape open the mouth after us and we are swallowed up by unspeakable tragedy and find ourselves at the bottom of the pit in the bowels of the earth, it is very hard to look beyond the immediacy, the inevitability, and the apparent immutability of our pain. When we are in the bowels of darkness and despair, it seems that there is no light and no hope and no end to our suffering and misery. “Let they bowels also [emphasis added] be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall they confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.” (D&C 121:45). Yes, when we are being tested beyond our limits, when our hearts break from bottomless grief, when our knees shake and tremble under the burdens that have been placed upon us, then the bowels of the earth are full of malice and cruelty and hate and resentment and bitterness. But they can also be full of charity. How can this be? When we are cast into the pit and into the bowels of the earth, it is perfectly understandable to drop into survival mode and to withdraw from everyone and everything. How could we possibly expect to interact even neutrally with other people without lashing out and displacing our own suffering onto them, to say nothing of trying to think about or care about or find some way to address or ameliorate whatever problems they may be facing? But focusing solely on ourselves will only make us miserable. After all, we’ve got a lot of problems. Those problems are real and undeniable and the longer that they persist, the more they will enervate and warp and hollow us out. But our salvation comes from realizing that we are not the only ones at the bottom of the pit. This is powerful and liberating and essential not because this gives us some sense of solidarity or camaraderie with our fellow-sufferers, although that can be an added bonus, but because when we, despite all of our own pain and misery and problems, seek out others who have been thrust into the bowels of the earth and we try to do what little we can to bring comfort and hope and healing, then it gives us a reason to be at the bottom of the pit. We are no longer the victims of cruel fate or Karmic justice. We can get an answer to that all-consuming question - Why me? It may not be the only answer or the complete answer, but it's certainly better than this big, gaping hole of confusion and bewilderment and betrayal that we’ve been living with ever since we fell into the pit. We are in the bowels of the earth because there are people down here who have it slightly worse off than we do, and we have an opportunity to fill this place of darkness and despair with the light and strength of the pure love of Christ. When we have been cast into the pit and swallowed by the jaws of hell, it does us no good to tell ourselves that we just have to buck up and put a smile on our face and pretend that everything isn’t burning to ashes around us. But what will do us some good is that when we are in the bowels, we can occasionally take a peek out and look beyond our own pain and notice that there are others down here with us, and even though it seems impossible, they’ve got it worse than we do. We know what they’re going through and we know that they need help. We can be that help. And what’s more, they might actually accept our help because we know according to our own flesh exactly what they’re going through. It won’t come off as insincere or condescending or tactless when we say we know what they’re going through. We’re not standing at the lip of the pit shouting down at them to straighten out their lives and get over themselves already. We’re in the pit right next to them. And when we’ve helped them enough to the point that they end up being slightly better off than we are, then they might just return the favor and help us. We bear one another’s burdens so that both our burdens and their burdens may be lighter together. By choosing to fill the bowels with charity, we help to transform rock bottom into the Rock of our Redeemer, and we build one another up. It is absolutely crappy to be in the bowels of the earth, but while we are stuck down there, we could do worse than trying to find someone else down there who is just a little bit worse off than we are and try to make things just a little bit better for them. If nothing else, it gives us a reason to be down there. I know that there is no version of hell that we can’t find some stupid way to make it just a little bit worse, or that we could make just the tiniest bit better if only we were humble and courageous enough to do so. I hope that at least some of the time when are lives are full of pain and darkness and misery, we can also do our best to make them full of charity as well.
