What the Atonement means to me

In life, I have many friends that I look up to, and for the most part, the more I get to know them, the more I respect them.

Lately I've become a lot closer to one particular friend with whom I work. We met each other last fall, but we never really worked together until this last Spring semester. For some reason we began going to each other for advice about more personal matters (perhaps partially because we weren't roommates or members of the same ward, so we weren't afraid that the other would gossip).

I simply love this coworker of mine! She's so sweet, and one of those people that you can tell genuinely loves and cares about everyone. She won my confidence faster than most. I eventually opened up to her about the depression I've been facing. She was really understanding, and told me she'd faced some of that herself a few years before. I immediately thought to myself, "Well, she's probably just referring to the typical struggle teenage girls go through (because she's only 19 right now)".

One day our conversation turned to depression again, and she admitted things that I didn't know, nor would I have ever expected from her, about the depths of the depression she faced. What she said shocked and saddened me...but above all, it gave me hope.

If she made it, and is today this sweet person whom I love so much...then I can make it too.

What a blessing it is for us to have people in our lives who can relate to us on such an intimate level. Some of life's challenges are too hard for us to bear on our own, and having someone by your side to coach you through it can make all the difference.

I feel like these last few months have brought me closer to my Savior than ever before in my life. As I've come to study about the Atonement in more depth, my gratitude for what Christ has done for us overwhelms me. Christ was the only person ever to resist every temptation possible to mankind. Yet He, who did no wrong, suffered every pain and sorrow that comes from giving into each and every temptation imaginable. He suffered for what He had never done so that He might have pity on us, and so that He might best know how to succor us. What great love!

Like my coworker, Christ has felt the pain I have. He knows exactly what I've been going through...and He made it. He overcame that hurt. So can I.

When Christ beckons to us, "Come, follow me", it is because He has walked the path we are on, or at least knows where it leads to, and He knows a more excellent way.

Not only does He gives us hope that we too can overcome the world, but He gave us the means by which we can be forgiven for the countless times that we fail. He truly is the Rock of our salvation, and the Anchor of our hope. Without Him, we cannot make it home to our Father in Heaven, no matter how hard we try.

A way home. Healing. Hope.

That is what the Atonement means to me.