Sabbath Devotional: I Will Find You in Gethsemane

We did it everyone. We made it through 2025 . . . phew . . . what a year. I don’t know about most of you, but 2025 was a hard year for me and for a lot of people I have talked to recently. When we dig deeper, 2025 could have felt hard because there was so much suffering in the world, in our communities, and in our families. 

It can be so hard to see ourselves or our loved ones suffer, but I have also found that it can be a privilege to be invited into those sacred spaces of suffering. In fact, one of MWEG’s Principles of Peacemaking is that “Peacemaking views human suffering as sacred.” It elaborates, “Suffering is an inevitable part of mortal existence that can be redemptive when we allow it to draw us closer to God and to each other. Peacemaking requires that we be willing both to suffer voluntarily for just causes and to alleviate the suffering of others wherever possible. In both cases, we emulate the Savior himself. For those to whom we cannot provide relief, we bear witness to their suffering, mourn with them in solidarity, and persistently shine a light on the causes of that suffering.”

The most poignant lesson I learned about this was from a sister missionary I taught in the MTC seven years ago. We were reading together the scriptural accounts of Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane. We read in Luke 22:41 when it says that Jesus was withdrawn from his friends, “a stone’s cast” and in Matthew 26:40 when Christ returns after unfathomable suffering to find his disciples asleep and he heartbreakingly asks, “could ye not watch with me one hour?” After reading these accounts, this sister missionary sat quietly staring at the ground. Then pensively, she broke the silence to say, “I wonder who may be suffering just a stone’s throw from me.” 

That one comment has stuck with me since then. I think about it often to remind myself to look for people who may need my support. I wrote a poem based on that thought a few years ago called I Will Find You in Gethsemane, and I’ve decided that it will be my 2026 New Year’s Resolution:

He asked them to watch with Him

To not suffer alone. 

In agony he bled

Great drops on his own.

Only a stone’s cast away,

'Maybe within sight,

'His earthly support rests

'While He endures the darkest of nights.

Then a Heavenly Angel descends

And strengthens The Son.

Alone no more,His battle is won.

Is the errand of Angels 

Not given to me?

How many suffer

A Stone’s cast from me?

Do I sleep when asked to watch?

Do my siblings cry out,

“In my Gethsemane, 

I’m struggling without

A friend, a support,

A strengthening hand.

Am I all alone

In this miserable land?”

So that is my charge

And my promise to you

My friend, like that Angel,

I’ll strengthen you too.

I will find you in Gethsemane

And not leave your sight.

I’ll wait with you in darkness

Until comes your light.

I will find you in Gethsemane,

And what His support could not do,

I will stay up, and 

I will watch with you.

Until that beautiful day that’s been foretold in the book of Revelation: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,” may we each be like that Angel offering support to our sisters and brothers enduring their own metaphorical Gethsemanes. 

---

Lindsey EchoHawk is a central engagement specialist at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.