Growing a Grinch Heart: The Link Between Suffering and Joy

Lately I’ve been thinking about the link between suffering and joy - and no, I don’t mean a diametrically opposite relationship. A friend of mine shared a couple scriptures from the Book of Mormon that provide some background for my thoughts: 

Alma 31:38 “they should suffer no manner of ​​​afflictions​, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.”

This scripture gives the hope that every sadness will be erased. But there is more - it will be swallowed up in the joy of Christ. That sounds like a lot more joy than just compensating for pain.  Picture rinsing something bad down a sink.  You use enough water to erase the nastiness and then you walk away from a now-clean sink.  If our heartache and pains are rinsed away by the living water of Jesus Christ, this sounds like a lot more living water than just what it takes to rinse sorrow, pain and grief down the sink — it sounds like He fills up the sink, the tub and every water bottle in the house with clean, pure water.  He can and will fill us up to overflowing with His living water.
Every pain, loneliness, heartbreak, disappointment, loss, fear, or dark and ugly experience doesn’t just have the guarantee of being eliminated in eternity, it also carries the promise of more joy. 

Alma 36:20 “And oh, what ​​​joy​, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!”

I picture the Grinch whose heart grew three sizes. Every pain, loss, sorrow, failure, and grief stretches our heart. Sometimes that stretching breaks open our hearts, but Christ is able to heal that heart and fill in the broken pieces so that it isn’t just a patchwork version of the original, but a larger heart than we started with. So every time our heart tears a little or cracks wide open with something painful, it is really just expanding the capacity of our hearts to receive even more joy. That is the true link between suffering and joy -- suffering enlarges and guarantees that we will receive more joy to come in the eternities if we allow Jesus Christ to be our Savior and accept the healing made possible through His atonement.

We are promised joy that outweighs every sorrow or pain. In that sense, every ugliness in life isn’t just a learning experience, but also guarantees more joy for us to come. What an amazing hope!  Our experience in mortality may be so difficult and the pain so incessant that may not get much of a glimpse of the joys that awaits us, but God promises us that it is there - growing with every heartache we experience here and now. And God keeps his promises. The payout often doesn’t come in this life, but it comes. “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven, but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”  - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/inspiration/latter-day-saints-channel/blog/post/good-things-to-come?lang=eng

Every negative emotion is temporary, but joy is eternal.  That is the hope guaranteed to all through our Savior Jesus Christ.