Even Through Pain, God Lives.

Warning: This post may wrench your heart a little. Don’t worry. It ends well, because God lives.

On Thursday night, I had a rare opportunity to learn about the Holocaust from Elias, a 95 year old Holocaust survivor. He told us about the nine different camps that he survived. No one else alive today has survived that many. He told us about the day he left his family to go work- “And that is when the fear began,” he told us. Little did he know, he would not return for years. From working in coal mines to building roads to transporting heavy loads of ammunition, he experienced hard labor on a dramatic scale. He escaped termination camps and was a victim of Dr. Mengele’s medical experiments, which were so horrific that he could not talk about them. From one camp to the next and practically starving to death, he barely managed to survive. At one point, he made it back home only to find his house empty. The war had not yet ended, and he later learned that his father had starved to death and his mother and five siblings were sent to gas chambers. He told us about Auschwitz, and I held my breath as he unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it up so we could see the number tattooed on his forearm. I felt my whole body shutter. The story looks up, I promise.

He told us that many Jews stopped believing in God after the Holocaust because they wondered how a loving God could let such awful things happen to His people. Elias, on the other hand, had a different perspective. I asked him what his source of hope and motivation was when times were the hardest and he felt like giving up. “God,” he responded. Somehow, even in his weakest and most painful moments, he found faith and trust in God. Even when he was suffering, he knew God loved him. This 95 year-old man is such a great example to me. We must never lose faith. His constantly smiling face hid all traces of scars and pain. Even his eyes smiled. One student asked why he was so happy, and he said that his happiness is revenge against the Nazis. It made me think about how frustrated the adversary is when we find joy in life.

Meet Elias and his contagious smile.

This week has kind of had a Holocaust theme, which has made it a pretty heavy few days. First we had our forum speaker, then throughout the week we watched two Holocaust movies, and yesterday, we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. Two hours in the museum was not near enough time to read all the stories and history, watch all the testaments of the survivors, and see all the art depictions, photos, and personal belongings of those who went through the traumatic genocide. It was more than enough time however, to make my stomach turn, my heart cry, and my mind contemplate. At a certain point, I had to stop reading, stop listening, and stop looking. I just walked. So many people died, but that wasn’t the source of my sadness. I was sad because of the wickedness of the people who persecuted the Jews and other groups at that time. I could not imagine how human beings could be so cruel. It reminded me of how so many of the prophets mourned because of the wickedness of the people, and it helped me understand it better. On an even greater scale, that mourning is only a fraction of what God feels when his children are wicked and inflict pain and suffering on his other children. It is no wonder that the second greatest commandment is to love one another.

The final room was large and round. The walls were filled with shelves of books of all the names of the victims of the Holocaust. Those 5-6 million written names took up all the space except for a few shelves at the end. Talking about it later with my roommate, she commented, “All I could think was, I am so grateful for those empty shelves.” The whole experience was a lot to take in, heavy, and somber, until that last room. As I looked at the books, I tried to imagine all the names and something beautiful came to mind. God knows them all; each and every one. Christ even felt their pain- each and every one. As I learn more and more here, I realize that everything really does tie back into the Atonement.

In the middle of that last room, the one with the books, there was a rock shaft that funneled down into a shallow pool of still water. I can’t seem to describe it in a way that makes it easy to imagine, but all I could think of when I saw it was the heavens. I could almost see worlds and creations beyond imagination, and I was reminded that His plan is so much grander than we can possibly fathom. A friend asked me “If you could go back and take the place of one of those victims and alleviate their pain, would you do it?” I thought for a second. “Yes” would be a courageous and valiant response, but in that moment, I realized something beautiful. “No,” I said. “Christ has already done that.” He is our Savior and Redeemer. His pain and suffering may not take away all the grief and sorrow we experience in this life, or the torment that those Holocaust victims went through in their lives, but this life is a temporal thing. He suffered for the sake of our eternal lives, so that we might be able to experience everlasting joy. In doing that, He understands our pain and will walk us through this life, each step of the way, if we will just let him.

My Old Testament professor shared some quotes with us, and I especially liked these two (they are long, but well worth the time it takes to read them):

“Now, we find many people critical when a righteous person is killed, a young father or mother is taken from a family, or when violent deaths occur. Some become bitter when oft-repeated prayers seem unanswered. Some lose faith and turn sour when solemn administrations by holy men seem to be ignored and no restoration seems to come from repeated prayer circles. But if all the sick were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the Gospel, free agency, would be ended. If pain and sorrow and total punishment immediately followed the doing of evil, no soul would repeat a misdeed. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good and not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls. Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment or even death, and if these were not, there would also be an absence of joy, success, resurrection, eternal life and Godhood.” (Spencer W. Kimball, “Tragedy or Destiny,” Improvement Era (Mar 1966), pp. 180,210.

“Critical to our knowledge of the plan of happiness is an understanding of the great governing principle of agency. A person does not have to spend much time in the schoolroom of mortality to realize that Heavenly Father’s plan does not provide for blissful happiness at every step along our mortal journey. Life is filled with harsh realities that tug at the heart and tear away at the soul. One cannot look at suffering, regardless of its causes or origins, without feeling pain and compassion. I can understand why someone who lacks an eternal perspective might see the horrifying news footage of starving children and man’s inhumanity to man and shake a fist at the heavens and cry, ‘If there is a God, how could he allow such things to happen?’ The answer is not easy, but it isn’t that complicated, either. God has put his plan in motion. It proceeds through natural laws that are, in fact, God’s laws. Since they are his, he is bound by them, as are we. I recognize for purposes we mortals may not understand, the Lord can control the elements. For the most part, however, he does not cause but he allows nature to run its course. In this imperfect world, bad things sometimes happen. The earth’s rocky underpinnings occasionally shift and move, resulting in earthquakes. Certain weather patterns cause hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and drought. Much adversity is man-made. Men’s hearts turn cold, and the spirit of Satan controls their actions. In foreseeing the day of suffering in our time, the Savior said, “The love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound” (D&C 45:27). Violence, immorality, and other evils run rampant on the earth. Much adversity has its origin in the principle of agency. We tend to think of agency as a personal matter. If we ask someone to define “moral agency,” the answer will probably be something like this: ‘Moral agency means I am free to make choices for myself.’ Often overlooked is the fact that choices have consequences; we forget also that agency offers the same privilege of choice to others. At times we will be affected adversely by the way other people choose to exercise their agency. Our Heavenly Father feels so strongly about protecting our agency that he allows his children to exercise it, either for good or for evil. The plan of happiness is available to all of his children. If the world would embrace and live it, peace, joy, and plenty would abound on the earth. Much of the suffering we know today would be eliminated if people throughout the world would understand and live the gospel. (M. Russell Ballard, “Answers to Life’s Questions,” Ensign (May 1995), p.23.)