Wretched

After describing the conflict with his brothers, which intensified immediately after the death of his father, Nephi shares with us his profound sorrow for his own shortcomings:

My heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.

And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins.

2 Nephi 4:17-19

But he immediately follows up with words of hope:

Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.

2 Nephi 4:19

Nephi’s words echo a passage from Paul’s epistle to the Romans:

I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Romans 4:23-24

Like Nephi, Paul knew the answer to this poignant question: “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 4:25, NIV).

“Wretched” means afflicted and miserable, to the point of being repulsive. A wretched person may attract pity and compassion, but no one enjoys their company. The word descends from Old English wrecca, which means an exile, or a banished person. The word connotes a rift—within ourselves, between us and other people, and even between us and God.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson has taught that before we can become one with God, “we must begin by becoming one within ourselves:”

We are dual beings of flesh and spirit, and we sometimes feel out of harmony or in conflict. Our spirit is enlightened by conscience, the light of Christ (see Moro. 7:16; D&C 93:2), and naturally responds to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit and desires to follow truth. But the appetites and temptations to which the flesh is subject can, if permitted, overwhelm and dominate the spirit….

We may look to Jesus to help restore the inner unity of our soul when we have succumbed to sin and destroyed our peace….

Becoming at one within ourselves prepares us for the greater blessing of becoming one with God and Christ.

“That They May Be One in Us,” General Conference, October 2002

Today, I will rely on Jesus Christ to help me heal all of the conflicts in my life, including the rift between my expectations of myself and my actual behavior. Like Nephi and Paul, I will acknowledge and even mourn the contradictions in my own soul, but I will not despair. I will remember “in whom I have trusted.”