Silence in the Storm

A storm consumed the entire sky today in Jerusalem.  We stayed caged up in the Center studying and attending classes.  I am now alone in this white spacious room at the top of the Jerusalem Center tonight.  Everyone is sleeping.  One light illuminates the hallway, causing shadows to dance down the corridor.  This is a celebrated sight, for this is the first time I have been entirely alone since being here.  The silence is golden.  As I part the white curtains at the end of the corridor, I look out at the Old City.  I watch the rain run down the window pane.  The gold of the dome is smudged through the droplet trails.  This is my life right now.  The whole world around me seems to be spinning out of my control and the only thing I can see clearly is right in front of me.  I cannot take the pains from my family, I cannot help my best friend with her wedding, and I cannot see my loved ones.  This chapter taking place in my life right now is solely about me.  I know I will never have a chapter like this again in my book.  I have the privilege to really focus on molding myself into the woman Heavenly Father wants me to become, to expand my knowledge of the world, and most importantly to strengthen my testimony of Christ as I learn of Him and His life.  Today, I put aside a couple homework hours in attempts to soak in all that I can about the Savior, His atonement and His sinless life.  I want to know more.  I know it has been merely a scratch on the surface but I implore with everything that I am to know more.  I am learning to wrestle with the innermost thoughts of my heart.  I want to know the Savior.  I want to know Him so badly.  I want to know Him as I do my closest friend.  I see millions of others devoutly worshiping, giving up their entire identities and souls for a particular religion.  Learning and becoming fully immersed in various cultures causes me to reflect on my own faith and testimony.  Why do I believe and live the way in which I do?  Millions of people that currently surround me are Muslims.  According to the Islamic religion, Jesus Christ is a prophet of Allah.  What about the Atonement or Crucifixion?  According to Holland, “Indeed the Atonement of the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh is the crucial foundation upon which all Christian doctrine rests and the greatest expression of divine love this world has ever been given. And having already offered the Atonement in our behalf, Christ has done His part to make that longing a reality. The rest will depend entirely upon ourselves.”   Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, the Redeemer and Savior of the human race, the Creator of the World, The Messiah, the Rock of My Salvation, the way in which we can live again with God.  “He suffered the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam.  He experienced temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great [was] his anguish” (Holland).  Why would we not go unto Him? He knows us! My goal since being here: to know Christ more personally.  How am I so blessed to have the fullness, the truth?