Experiencing the Atonement

Tonight at our relief society activity, I put on a blind-fold and someone silently guided me into the auditorium. Hallelujah-type music was playing and though I couldn't see, I could sense it was dark around me. Other women sat blind-folded near me but not within reaching distance.

The program began while music continued to play, and a male voice spoke about how we would be journeying through the life of Christ. For the next hour, without the use of my vision I relied on my other senses to tune into what was happening around me; to better focus on the words being spoken; to feel the objects placed in my hands . . .

Beginning with Christ's birth, music and an appropriate script was spoken, followed by Christ at the age of 12 and then as a grown man healing the sick and needy. . . at each life event that we have read and know about from the scriptures, we as the participants individually experienced these events. For example, when talking about how Christ calmed the seas, the room filled with the sounds of crashing waves and flickering lights and sounds of thunder. We were sprinkled with water while strong winds hit our face, simulating the storm . . . and then later, as Christ healed a child so the parents could have their daughter back from the dead, the brightest light fell upon me, warm and so brilliant that it penetrated through the blind-fold. In combination with the music, this is the point where the sobbing took over and I did not quite recover until it was all over.

The experience became dark as we heard the description of Christ suffering in Gethsemane, followed by the betrayal that lead to his torture. Already emotionally vulnerable, this part spoke powerfully to my soul -- so much that I physically trembled, and when a massive nail was place in my hands with the pointed end touching my palms, I felt afraid that someone might hammer them into my hands, especially when the sound of metal driving into wood echoed through the gym three times. I cringed and wept for my Savior, truly feeling and imagining further the loneliness and fear He must have felt as He suffered alone. Around this time, someone whispered, "Will you carry this for me?" and I was gently pulled to my feet. A beam of wood was placed on my shoulders and I was lead to walk a few steps in a circle, simulating how the Savior carried His own cross to his death.

As Christ gave up His life on the cross, again I felt water sprayed upon me and the winds and lightening -- and the despair. I was cold. Literally so cold on the outside and shaking within, overwhelmed by emotions as my thoughts focused on how Jesus Christ suffered these things for us all. He suffered for me so that I could make it through losing my son.

My thoughts were directed towards the power of the Atonement and how personally I learned how it heals. I had never experienced it before. Never understood it before. Until Ty died and I couldn't understand how I could feel the closest I have ever felt to Heaven. A peace so powerful that I no longer feared death and welcomed returning Home someday, knowing my son awaits me, and my Savior awaits me, and a loving Heavenly Father awaits me, with a plan so merciful that we can make it back if we follow the guidance given to us.

To say the experience was incredible would be an under-statement. I wish everyone could be a part of what I just went though. I just wanted someone to give me a big warm hug by the end of it, I was so drained! But I settled for a handful of tissues.

The woman assisting me through the experience (handing me various objects, spotting me so I would not fall) said she watched me through it all, and she noticed when I first cried, which was when the warm heat lamp was directed at me. She said she felt the Spirit hit her so strongly that she had shivers and goosebumps because she could see how intensely I was feeling the Spirit.

Heavy experience yet oddly uplifting, too, because of what it represents.
Well done. So well done.