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Healing Broken Relationships

Healing Broken Relationships

Becky Watson
Relationships, Jesus Christ

Healing Broken Relationships

By Becky Watson

My name is Becky Watson and my husband Steve and I live in East Valley, Arizona. We met at Brigham Young University, and spent the first couple years of our marriage in Michigan, then Ohio, where our first son was born. Then as wide-eyed adventurers we moved to Brazil for my husband’s new job. We lived there for five years and accumulated incredible memories, dear friends, and our favorite souvenirs: two more sons.

We then moved to Arizona, and while I wasn’t excited at first (because scorpions!) we now love it here and never, ever, ever want to move. We’ve also added three more boys and a girl as a cherry on top, bringing the total to seven – which is the number of scriptural perfection, of course.  

Our 20th anniversary was last week, and I just summed up 20 years of married life in two paragraphs, and virtually ignored the first 20 years of our lives…plus a few more. We, like you, have had our share of disappointments, struggles, and downright terrible times. We, like you, have experienced betrayals from friends, financial hardships, the covenant breaking of loved ones, and our own struggling faith, doubts, and unanswered questions. And we, like you, have also experienced the fulfillment of long-awaited promises, divine miracles, and unspeakable joy.

A primary purpose of this earth-life is to form relationships; we cannot follow the Savior’s commandment to “love one another” by ourselves. Many times I have thought to myself that if I could only run away to the mountains and seclude myself there, I would achieve perfection. But that simply isn’t true. We are commanded to love, to serve, to bear one another’s burdens and mourn with those who mourn. I can’t do that if I’m a hermit. It is through relationships with others that we learn how to become like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He showed us how to live a perfect life – but He did it among imperfect people. And those are the footsteps we must follow.

One could argue that every relationship on earth is broken, because every ONE on earth is broken. But this is the Lord’s specialty. He’s a bit of an expert at making the impossible possible. Elder Uchtdorf said:

“As long as we mortals live on this wonderful and beautiful planet, we will make mistakes. … You say you’re not perfect? You’re not good enough? Well, welcome to the club! You may be just the person God is looking for.”[1]

 
 

In our most recent general conference, Sister Amy Wright speaks at length about how loving and following the Savior can heal our broken relationships – with ourselves, with others, and with God. [2]

Three years ago, after a traumatic incident that left me questioning my purpose, I found myself plunging down a deep hole of anxiety and darkness. In Elder Holland’s words, it was a “psychic blow that was as unanticipated as it was real.”[3] It was all I could do to function – and function rather badly. For almost a year I went through the motions during the day, quivering with sobs every night and consumed by self-doubt and guilt.

Then a miracle happened.

Just as in the days of Christ’s apostles, we believe in priesthood blessings. We believe that God speaks to us words of comfort and healing through one who holds priesthood authority. (see James 5:14; Doctrine and Covenants 24:13–14; 42:43–44, 48–52). I received such a blessing. 

In that blessing, the Lord told me that my trial was finished. That I had learned enough. That I had passed. And He was now removing it; I was healed. But it wasn’t merely a healing of my anxiety and depression – it was a healing of the relationship I had broken with myself. I was previously consumed by self-loathing as I recounted my sins and weaknesses like a bad Disney song stuck in your head. I felt unloved and unloveable. But God helped me see myself as He sees me – as someone of infinite, impossible worth. It was as stark a contrast as Alma the younger describes in the Book of Mormon.[4] Previously, I felt:

I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell;  

But after the Lord opened my eyes to his infinite love,  

I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you, …that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, … that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy. 

I testify that turning to Christ can heal our broken relationship with ourselves.  

As hinted at previously, as part of our sojourn on this earth so far, I have had my share of broken relationships with others. It’s not hard to do, as there are so many broken people to choose from.

There is one person with whom I’ve had a particularly difficult broken relationship. It has caused me immense pain over the years, as I’ve struggled to both love and understand this person. I was consumed by anger and hurt. I did all the things. I attended the temple, I studied my scriptures, I hummed hymns and at one point fasted every week for over a year. Slowly – agonizingly slowly – I felt my bitterness subside, and I was able to accept the brokenness of this individual, and mine as well. Eventually I felt nothing but compassion. On the outside, nothing had changed. On the inside, everything had changed.  

I wish I could say that the story ends with me and this person holding hands and spouting forgiveness around a campfire, but this person died before that could happen. On one hand, it looks like my thesis statement is incorrect: loving and following the Savior did not mend our broken relationship. But it mended ME. And even more joyously, because of the Resurrection, I have hope that in the life to come, I will enjoy a full and loving relationship with this person. I know I will. It is not the end of the story.  

I testify that turning to Christ can heal our broken relationships with others.

Finally, our broken relationship with the Father.  

No one knows more than He how desperately we need Him. We cannot hide from His perfect sight. He knows the deepest, darkest corners of our souls – the thoughts and actions we don’t want anyone to know about. But He does not shrink in horror or distaste at our innermost vices. He knows them. But He loves us all the more. Instead of recoiling, He embraces us, and invites us to stay. St. Augustine taught that Christ is healer and medicine in one. We used our immortality so badly as so encourage the penalty of death: but Christ used his mortality so well as to restore us to life.[5] Much like the adulterous woman, he asks us to “go, and sin no more”[6] [which] could be phrased as “go forth and change.” In the talk mentioned previously, Sister Wright continues:  

The Savior was inviting her to repent: to change her behavior, her associations, the way she felt about herself, her heart.

Because of Christ, our decision to “go forth and change” can also allow us to “go forth and heal,” for He is the source of healing all that is broken in our lives. As the great Mediator and Advocate with the Father, Christ sanctifies and restores broken relationships—most important, our relationship with God.

 
 

We all need healing. This earth is a hospital, not a country club, and we all have need of the healing power of Christ. I testify that turning to the Savior can heal all that is broken in our lives.





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