From D. Kelly Ogden and his book “Before You Get to Heaven”:
On March 1, 1998, my wife, Marcia, and I attended the Javiera Carrera Stake in Santiago, Chile. I bore testimony that Heavenly Father wants his children who have strayed to come back in the fold. We can repent and return. And I reminded the members that the last time that Sister Ogden and I spoke to them in that stake was just a few hours after I had wrecked our van. We had to get by without that vehicle for two and a half months while it was being repaired. But, I told them, if they wanted to see our van now they could go right out in front of the church and see it. And they could look closely, but they would not see any signs of it ever having been damaged, because it was beautifully and completely repaired. I bore testimony that our lives can be totally repaired also. The damage cause by the wreckage of sin can be repaired so that the damage cannot be detected. The Savior can reactivate the Spirit in our lives. He can repair all damage done.
But as Elder Oaks explained, the atonement does even more than give us a cleanse and repair of all damage done. Early in 1984, while returning to our home in Jerusalem, I must have been handling our large heavy suitcases when something went wrong in my lower back. For several months I found myself in excruciating pain, apparently from some bone fragments sticking into the largest nerve in my body, the sciatic that runs down the spine into the legs. After I had three months of experimental treatments in Israeli hospitals—and after spending three months of not being able to function because of the intense pain—my doctor put me on the strongest pain-killer he could prescribe without personally accompanying me and sent me on a plane flight across the world to Salt Lake City for a back operation. The surgery was successful. After some weeks of recovery I flew back to the Holy Land to resume teaching and guiding the students on field-trips all over the lands of the Bible.
I learned something from that painful ordeal. It is not enough to repair the damage done; I have to continually strengthen my back so it doesn’t happen again. So it is with repentance. We must cleanse or purge ourselves of all that is wrong inside, repair the damage that has been done, and continually strengthen ourselves to become more and more resistant to sin and more and more capable of sustaining light and truth from Him who is our strength. ~~~ D. Kelly Ogden, Eight Mighty Changes God Wants for You (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004) 81-83
