You are more.

Life has a way of forcing us to deal with our deepest pains. Our deepest fears tend to find their way in, even when we feel at our weakest. 

Let's face it. Sometimes, life sucks.

We are riddled with doubts, sorrow, tears and guilt. Our hearts break, our hands hang down and our knees grow feeble. Sometimes we even lose faith that Jesus Christ will love us, can love us.

We fear and allow Satan to convince us that we are not good enough. That our efforts of repentance and salvation mean nothing. We think we are lost and doomed forever. We feel unloved.

My journey to find peace really began when I started going to church. I was 12 when I went regularly. I learned about prayer, what prayer is, why we pray and then how to pray. From the night I first learned of prayer and every night following, I prayed to know one thing, "Do you love me, Father in Heaven?" 

It seemed simple. I prayed. And prayed. And prayed. 

I didn't get an answer.

For years.

During those years, so many things happened. Good, bad, ugly. I feared greatly that my Heavenly Father was showing me how He felt, rather than telling me simply to "get lost." 

Still, I prayed.

I just wanted to know He was there. I needed to hear it from Him, one way or the other.

Then one day, I was done. I couldn't do it anymore. I was tired of picking up the pieces without the love of my Savior, I was sick of praying to a Heavenly Father who wouldn't listen to me. I decided to give the Lord one last chance.

I prayed. 

And nothing happened.

Nothing. No comfort, no angelic visitation, no peace. Nothing.

I was crushed. After shedding copious amount of tears and shaking my fist at Heaven (don't worry, I have since repented of that!) I turned one last time to my Scriptures.

Paul taught me something incredible:

"What, know ye not that ... ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price..." 

Nephi then taught me that night:

"... Behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me - but He will show that he hath not ... Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." 

My walls, whatever they may be, are before me and my Savior. Just as they are for you. 

I could site account after account in the scriptures where the Savior rescues, heals and protects. Truly EVERY account in the Holy Scriptures testifies of His mercy, His goodness and His compassion. He healed all who came to Him.

"Yeah Dibe, but I can't come to Him. I'm too broken. I've made too many mistakes." 

To you, I challenge you to take a good long hard look at the photo above. He knows your name, He's known your name since before you were born. In fact, He paid for those mistakes thousands of years before you were born. 

Your face, my face we are graven on His hands. YOUR face is the face He saw when He was tortured and battered and bruised, your face is what gave Him strength to take that lonely walk to Calvary. Your face pulled Him through. 

I know that if YOU had been the only person in the history of humanity, throughout all of eternity to have messed up. If you were the only one to have strayed from the strait and narrow, to have needed a Redeemer so that you could repent. Jesus Christ would have come for YOU. Only you. He would have suffered. He would have allowed Himself to be tortured and ridiculed, beaten and crucified; He would have taken on the pains of Gethsemane, if you had been the only person in the history of Ever to have needed it. 

If He can love me, I know that He loves you.

Tonight, I am grateful for Tenth Avenue for reminding me that even on days that I feel about 4 feet, 8 inches tall, I don't always suck: 

There's a girl in the corner 

With tear stains on her eyes 

From the places she's wandered 

And the shame she can't hide 

She says, "How did I get here? 

I'm not who I once was. 

And I'm crippled by the fear 

That I've fallen too far to love" 

But don't you know who you are, 

What's been done for you? 

Yeah don't you know who you are? 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

Well she tries to believe it 

That she's been given new life 

But she can't shake the feeling 

That it's not true tonight 

She knows all the answers 

And she's rehearsed all the lines 

And so she'll try to do better 

But then she's too weak to try 

But don't you know who you are? 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

'Cause this is not about what you've done, 

But what's been done for you. 

This is not about where you've been, 

But where your brokenness brings you to 

This is not about what you feel, 

But what He felt to forgive you, 

And what He felt to make you loved. 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

You are more than the choices that you've made, 

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes, 

You are more than the problems you create, 

You've been remade. 

You've been remade 

You've been remade. 

You've been remade. 

You've been remade.