If the Jaws of Hell Gape Open

How do you survive despair? Where do you turn when all is dark and you feel lost, alone, forgotten? Where, for you, is relief?

In my early 20s, I was diagnosed with diabetes. I once wrote about my search for light in that dark time. I cited the scripture passage that brought me peace in the aftermath:

“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.

The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?”

Doctrine and Covenants, Section 122:7-8

Every time I read this scripture, I remember how unmoored I felt then, a stranger in a strange land. The scenarios the scripture presented felt so apt. Wasn’t I handed a death sentence? Wasn’t the mouth of hell gaping wide before me, a disoriented, barely adult woman, facing an unknown and frightening future?

I’ve lived only one other time of similar darkness, and both remade me.

But if hell is a place of fire (as all the media we’ve consumed assures us it is), then it shouldn’t be surprising that these hellacious experiences seared my soul. What is vitally important to me, though, is that the fire purify me rather than lay me waste. I hope that pride has been burned out, leaving fertile ground for humility to take seed. Selfishness reduced to ashes, compassion multiplied. If so—if the fire has refined rather than destroyed—then it has been God’s tool, not hell’s.

When challenges plunge us into darkness, perhaps it is the light generated by the refining fire that ultimately saves us from oblivion.

Further reading: I recommend listening to or reading these beautiful addresses on this same topic. 
1. Elder Anthony D. Perkins' "Remember thy Suffering Saints, O Our God"
2. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's "Lessons From Liberty Jail"