“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25). It is not only Adam that had to fall so that we might be. We too must each fall in our own way before we can truly be. After all, each of us must be punished and rewarded for our own choices, and not for Adam's transgressions. Falling is a part of life. More importantly, falling is necessary in order to be able to have joy. After all, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner - or one faller - who repents, than there is for ninety and nine who need no repentance or never fell in the first place. There is not necessarily always joy in the act of falling, although the popularity of roller coasters, bungee jumping, and skydiving suggest that there is some joy to be found in the falling. As Thomas Wayne says to his son Bruce in the movie Batman Begins, “Why do we fall, Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” There is joy in learning from our mistakes and working with the Savior to pick ourselves back up and build a better version of ourselves. We can't experience this joy until we have fallen and been broken into pieces. If we are truly to become the disciples of Jesus Christ, then we can't lock our heart away in a box, or bury it in the sand, or hide it under a bushel. He demands of us the sacrifice of a broken heart, and the only way that we will get our hearts broken is to go out into the world before we are ready and stumble and fall in the dark and trust that no matter how hard we fall and no matter into how many pieces our heart shatters, our Savior will work with us to build us a new heart out of the old one, a new life out of the ashes of our mistakes. Falling leads us not to but through sadness and the valley of the shadow of death and into the green pastures and still waters of that inexplicable joy that comes to all who have truly repented and been forgiven of their sins and have picked themselves up from the dirt when they have fallen.
