"I did this for you"

When participating in a recent Zoom devotional, Susan Porter, First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency, suddenly remembered the events leading up to her husband’s unexpected death.

Each of the memories she recalled contained a theme of unusual peace. Peace as she rode the subway in a foreign country for 45 minutes to the hospital her husband was situated at. Peace as she sat in the cold ICU, holding the hand of her beloved. Peace as she got back on the subway each day and sat in her home, alone.

Suddenly, in that Zoom meeting, she realized that the comfort, reassurance, and stability she had felt during the last weeks of her husband’s life were not her own feelings:

“As I was wrapped in those memories, the Lord spoke clearly to my mind: ‘I did this for you.’”

“I did this for you.”

The Savior’s actions and sacrifices for us are apparent throughout all of his life.

When he volunteered in the pre-existence to be the world’s sacrificial lamb,

As he gathered apostles, taught his redeeming gospel, and ministered to the disabled, downcast, and (what society labeled as) dishonorable,

When in a dark garden he took upon himself the temptations, weaknesses, sins, traumas, abuses, illnesses, and unfair experiences of the world,

As his own people betrayed him and merciless soldiers mocked, bruised, and scourged him,

When he hung on the cross, experiencing an agonizingly slow, humiliating death,

He said to his distraught disciples and mother,

weeping followers, local on-lookers, and

Roman soldiers: “I did this for you”

He did it for everyone hundreds of years ago.

And he did it for us, today, too.

To all that have ever lived, that currently live, and will live, Christ says: “I did this for you.”

We all can receive the general blessings of Christ’s sacrifices and tender mercies. We can access the power of his Atonement and improve. We can receive a resurrected body, be reunited with deceased family, and live in eternal glory.

But Christ promises us even more than eternal, long-term blessings. To Sister Porter, he offered stability during an incredibly difficult and emotional time. For us, he can provide us with whatever strength, relationships, healing, educational opportunities, epiphanies, career changes, peace, or confidence that we need throughout mortality.

And then, like Sister Porter, we’ll come to gratefully realize what he’s done for us.

In a 2021 session of BYU Women’s Conference, through testimony-filled tears, Elder Ronald A. Rasband tenderly said:

“Would He have willingly suffered, blood seeping from every pore, if each of us was not a child of God?”

Christ sacrificed himself and continues to enact miracles in our lives because we are divine. Our spiritual heritage makes us priceless and full of potential. But Christ loves us beyond our potential. He loves who we can become but his love is not dependent on who we are in the future.

His love requires nothing. It just exists, free of conditions, constraints, and contingencies.

“I did this for you”, he says, “because I love you.”

In today’s devotional address to BYU campus, Niwako Yamawaki stated:

“During painful times, somehow, I think about Jesus. The scars in his hands are proof of his suffering and pain. Even though he was resurrected and has a perfect body, he decided to keep his scars. This is because he wanted to show that he is the Savior. But I believe that he decided to keep his scars also because he wants us to know that he also suffered and experienced so much pain. I feel as if he tells me, ‘I love each one of you so much that I was willing to become one of you to show each of you that I was willing to take on your sufferings, so that I can feel fully your pain and identify with each of you.’”

“I did this for you”, Christ says, with outstretched, nail-scarred palms, “because I love you.”

How grateful I am for a Savior who did and continues to do everything for me!