Flooded with Light

"We see such a limited part of the eternal plan He has fashioned for each one of us. Trust Him, even when in eternal perspective it temporarily hurts very much. Have patience when you are asked to wait when you want immediate action. He may ask you to do things which are powerfully against your will. Exercise faith and say, Let Thy will be done. Such experiences, honorably met, prepare you and condition you for yet greater blessings. As your Father, His purpose is your eternal happiness, your continuing development, your increasing capacity. His desire is to share with you all that He has. The path you are to walk through life may be very different from others. You may not always know why He does what He does, but you can know that He is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. He would have you suffer no consequence, no challenge, endure no burden that is superfluous to your good.

"To gain unshakable faith in Jesus Christ is to flood your life with brilliant light. You are no longer alone to struggle with challenges you know you cannot resolve or control yourself..."

Richard G. Scott, "Obtaining Help from the Lord," General Conference, October 1991.

Last night I was talking with one of the Elders serving in our ward.  He was just weighed down by some of the struggles which tend to accompany the work.  He asked me for guidance, and I think even just a word of encouragement may gave done the trick.  Unfortunately, being in a place where I'm struggling to find something positive in the same  things and people that are weighing him down, all I could say was, "while I wish I could say something to lift you up, there's not a whole lot of light at the end of my current tunnel, and I really have nothing to offer."  What a terrible way to feel, and what an awful place to be when you are so consumed by your perceived darkness, that you can't offer even a single lumen of light to someone else in need of it.

How opposite that is from Elder Scott's point that when we are living a life full of faith in Christ, we are flooded with light.  It's that light that illuminates the reality of what the Atonement was designed to do: to apply mercy to our burdens, to change us, to make us what we were designed to become, to help us see the hand that is always stretched out to take from us what He paid the price in Gethsemane to take from us.  There is no darkness in that truth.