Our Suffering Might Not Be

I have been thinking much lately about the Atonement.  When Abinadi is standing before King Noah, he tells them that he will not be taken before he has said all that Heavenly Father wants him to say and he speaks much of the Savior, his Atonement, and the resurrection.

He teaches us in Mosiah 16:10-11 that all will be resurrected and judged according to what we have become during this life:

"Even this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruption shall put on incorruption, and shall be brought to stand before the bar of God, to be judged of him according to their works whether they be good or whether they be evil--If they be good, to the resurrection of endless life and happiness; and if they be evil, to the resurrection of endless damnation, being delivered up to the devil, who hath subjected them, which is damnation."

I have been thinking much lately of the choice that needs to be made.  Will I forsake the sins that so easily beset me?  The word 'forsake' seems to capture the necessary feeling best.  I need to not only refrain from committing my 'favorite' sins, but I need to turn my back of even the desire to do them.

Kenneth Cope is the composer that wrote Women at the Well.  A line from one of those songs has periodically been running through my mind this past week.  In Miracle from Heaven it says:

                                          "He has drenched Himself in our suffering

                                           That our suffering might not be..."

It is the words "might not be" that have really caught me attention.  I heard them soon after reading Mosiah 16:12 which says:

"...for the arms of mercy were extended towards them, and they would not; they being warned of their iniquities and yet they would not depart from them..."

I know that the consequences of my sins cause me pain now.  So it is not only the next life I am thinking of when I remember that the Savior is there, arms extended, waiting for me to hand him my burden and trust that he has the power to take it upon himself--in fact, has already taken it upon himself.  My refusal to acknowledge and use his great gift would be like insisting on paying my mortgage payment every month even though a kind benefactor has already, though great hardship on himself, paid for my house in full.

My suffering "might not be," but only if I, with faith and hope in the Savior, acknowledge the gift of the Atonement and use it.