By Tiffany Meredith
Everyone needs to be healed, whether it is emotional, mental or spiritual, and the Savior is the master healer who can heal without leaving a scar, said speakers at the annual Mary Ellen Edmunds endowment dinner Wednesday, April 4, 2007.
Edmonds, a 1962 graduate of the nursing school, spoke at the dinner and read the children''s story 'Humpty Dumpty.' She said sometimes we are as Humpty - broken and scattered. But unlike Humpty, we can be put back together.
'This is a fairytale, but there is one who can put us back together,' Edmunds said. 'He knows where all the pieces are, and he knows where all the pieces go. He is our Savior, our redeemer and our healer. He is the only one who can gather all those pieces and put them where they belong.'
Edmunds said she is grateful for the Savior and what he can do for us.
'We do have a savior and redeemer,' she said. 'He is the great physician to all those who are sick. To all of us. To all those who are not yet whole.'
Sheri Dew, the keynote speaker, asked Wendy Watson Nelson, a close friend and wife of Elder Nelson, to share an experience she had where she needed physical healing. Nelson shared an accident she had where faith, prayer and the Lord''s mercy left her without a scar. She fell flat on her face at the airport and scraped her face so badly that bone was exposed. After prayer, Nelson was calmed, her pain lessoned, and she was aided by a flight attendant, who was a former nurse. Eventually she went to a plastic surgeon, received a priesthood blessing and was healed without a scar.
She said through the experience she learned the Lord answers prayers and we can be healed without scars.
Dew said just as her friend was healed without a scar, the Savior knows how to heal us. She said she went through a rough time in her thirties when she almost got married, but instead was left lonely, frustrated, angry and alone. Dew learned to rely on the Savior for healing and truly learned the power of the atonement.
'When I encountered an excruciating, painful experience, I suddenly realized I didn''t know what the Lord had done and didn''t understand what he said he would do for me,' she said.
After searching the scriptures and reading that the Savior heals souls, succors us, heals infirmities and heals the broken hearted, she pleaded with the Lord for healing. She said the process of healing includes praying with all energy of heart and then we will be blessed with healing.
'Hope, peace and healing gifts come when we plead to the Father in the name of his son to be healed,' she said. 'There is no limit to his capacity, no limit on his gifts. The Lord can heal you and still heal me.'
Dew said we were reserved for the last days and that the Father and the Son want to bless and help us. Through prayer and faith, we can receive strength and healing to press forward.
'Because of the atonement, the Savior can enable us to do things we could never do on our own,' she said. 'He sanctifies us and renews us. And he can heal a wounded, heavy, sad heart without a scar.'
Dew shared an experience where she ran over the top of a street lamp on the freeway and her car would not move forward. At first she didn''t know why her car would not move, but with the help of a police officer, she decided to back up and found the large chunk of metal under her car.
'What may be stopping our forward momentum?' she said. 'It''s usually something small. All I had to do was back up, and I didn''t have to back up very far.'
She said sometimes it is necessary to back up, in order to move forward. It could mean repenting, mending a relationship, starting to do something or forgiving someone.
Dew said the prophets all testified of two main things: Christ''s ministry and the last days. She said we are all here now because we were saved for the last days. She said the veil is thin and the Father and Son want to prompt us to guide us.
'They say, we''ll give you everything. We''ll teach you everything, if you are true followers of the Son. In the most rigorous situation, the Savior heals. And he heals without a scar.'