Elaine Sorensen Marshall wrote:
Grace, the divine gift of the Atonement, is a healing balm readily available to relieve our pain, a nourishing manna to assuage the hungers of our daily lives. In the arithmetic of the daily universe, how may grief, regret or disappointment be accounted for when repentance does not apply or restitution is not possible? Only God’s grace can balance the account. Elder Gene R. Cook taught “Christ was sent not only to help us heal the wounds of transgression and iniquity, but also to bear our grief and sorrow and guilt” (New Era, December 1988, 4).
I have been humbled by countless evidences of my own negligence and inadequacies, which only Christ’s atonement will redeem. I see them in the faces of my children when I disappointment them. Poor decisions may cause our families to . . . suffer; we are negligent or unconscious of acts and words that harm or destroy. The greater part of hurt, guilt, loss, or regret is borne privately, in a quiet heart, away from warmth and casseroles of supportive friends or family. St. Exupéry wrote in The Little Prince, “It is such a secret place, the land of tears” (New York, 1943, 31). Grace brings to that place the gift of healing that allows peace and growth. . . .
Anyone who would be a disciple of Christ kneels sometime at Gethsemane. But . . . we need not stay. When we can find the courage to surrender, to accept the gift of the Savior—who already suffered there—we can stand and move onto another garden. Grace offers the quiet promise of that safe passage. ~Elaine Sorensen Marshall, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 101
