Testimony

Here is the testimony that I didn't get around to bearing in church.

As of late, I've been undergoing a lot of maladies. In retrospect, I realized that all of them in their own unique ways parallel my testimony of the atonement of the Savior and things I ought to be doing to better apply it in my life.

-I went on a run down Indian Road and got lost. At one point the trail was steeper and rockier than I realized and I rolled my ankle. I could tell I had done a number to my knee and that my hip was bruised but I decided after a certain point I just needed to get up and keep running. I didn't notice how bad things were until I sat down in the car and noticed I'd torn the knee of my favorite pair of running pants. I rolled them up and was astonished at the bloody, inflamed mess. I rinsed it off with soap and water, but it wasn't until I used alcohol wipes did it stop threatening infection. The alcohol was painful, sending a firey sting across my entire leg, but the next day the swelling finally started to go down.
-My allergies were going crazy. I had blown my nose so frequently that I started having nose bleeds. I tried to convince myself it was a one day thing but it happened the following night and I finally decided it had to stop. I took my Clariten and hardly an hour later I could breath again. Even at work, where the air quality is particularly bad, my nose stayed clean. No nose bleeds, no congestion, nothing.
-I had been puking all day. My body ached, my temperature feverish, physically exhausted, famished but unable to keep anything down, rather miserable. I avoid taking medication at almost all cost but I finally decided it was time to take 2 Ibuprofin. Not long later I was able to down a few crackers and finally drift off to sleep.

I think far too often I find myself trying to make things all right. I am a strong beautiful woman of the 21st century. They say you can do anything you put your mind to and I'm often amazed at all of the things I'm able to accomplish when I do so. However, sometimes this train of thought goes too extreme. I'm running down a path with a festering wound, I'm losing blood, I can't breath, I'm starving, exhausted, dying. I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be weak, that my body needs to do what I want it to. It'll heal itself. At the most I need is a little time but I don't need anyone or anything else.

The thing is that we have the atonement. I may be frustrated with my weaknesses, my emotions, my inability to do everything I feel I should be able to, but nobody is able to execute all that with perfection. The only person to ever do so suffered, died, and overcame so that we wouldn't have to do things on our own. He is the elixir of life. He is the medicine, the Balm of Gilead. If I stopped fussing, admitted that I need something more, and actually applied the atonement more readily, I wouldn't spend so long being completely miserable and invalid.

He can heal my soul. Why am I still letting myself spiritually fester, bleed, and puke?