Some thoughts...

(if you are new to this blog I implore you to follow from the very first post.)

There is a quote I love by George Q. Cannon. “We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are children of God and that he has actually given His angels....charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping.”

We are everything to Him!

Recently when our ward had our Primary Sacrament meeting I wrote down some of the statements made by the children. One said “I know Jesus loves me because He makes me feel good.” Another stated “ I am grateful fro Jesus because He is nice to me and Helps me.”
All of this made me reflect on an experience I had with my grandson a few years ago. He was probably about 3 years old at the time. I was visiting their family in Austin and he was having a difficult day. His mother had repeatedly asked him to get his shoes on and he was struggling to get motivated. Finally, I pick up him and his shoes and gently set him on my lap. As I began to put on his shoes I started singing “Heavenly Father, are you really there and do you hear and answer every child’s prayer? Some say that Heaven is far away, but I feel it close around me as I pray.”

I got to that point when he turned his face toward mine and kissed me on the cheek. An incredible spirit filled the room. It was as if the walls closed in around us and that little boy and I were the center of the universe wrapped in the arms of our Heavenly Father. It was as if my grandson was bearing testimony to me that he knew Heavenly Father and he knew that He loved him.

It is a difficult task as parents to help our little ones remember what they already know. It is difficult for us as adults to remember what we once knew.

We can’t speak of service and love without referring to our savior whose sacrifice for us was personal and intimate.

C. S. Lewis said: “[God] has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man [or woman] in the world” (Mere Christianity [1943], 131).

When empowered by the love of our Savior we can do and overcome anything, for with god nothing shall be impossible.

He has said “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Jeremiah 31:3

Elder John Groberg has said:
"When filled with God’s love, we can do and see and understand things that we could not otherwise do or see or understand. Filled with His love, we can endure pain, quell fear, forgive freely, avoid contention, renew strength, and bless and help others in ways surprising even to us.

Jesus Christ was filled with unfathomable love as He endured incomprehensible pain, cruelty, and injustice for us. Through His love for us, He rose above otherwise insurmountable barriers. His love knows no barriers. He invites us to follow Him and partake of His unlimited love so we too may rise above the pain and cruelty and injustice of this world and help and forgive and bless.”

To really believe and feel, to trust and rely on his love for us and then to be able to extend that love to his children especially those we don’t feel deserve it-- those who have hurt, abused, betrayed, misjudged and mistreated us or those we love-- we will have to know him. It is not enough to know of him, we will need to become intimately acquainted with him. We are here precisely to do just that so that we will learn his divine qualities and plant them deep within our souls that we may become like him.
In the words of Michael Wilcox: “God desires children who are like him, reflecting all his perfections. What is God like? He is full of mercy, compassion, empathy, and charity. He works for his children’s happiness. He serves and forgives. To become like him, we, too, must acquire these traits. What experiences of life are most conducive in developing these qualities? When others suffer, we feel mercy and compassion. When others sin against us, we learn to forgive. Through others’ needs, we learn service, empathy, and charity. The most trying times of our own lives often are the best producers in us of godlike qualities.
We are given choices in mortality. We can choose to let the pain of life develop cruelty, indifference, and doubt within us. Or we can let it build compassion, wisdom, and faith.”

The only way that we will be able to believe we are worth loving the only way we can learn to forgive and to bless, the only way we can help a wandering child or heal a troubled marriage, the only way we can walk his path consistently and find answers to all our yearnings is with our hand in His. His arms are extended to us all the day long. He waits and longs for us to fall into them so he can heal and bless our lives. He is not sidetracked. We are all he does!

We talk of time restraints and other diversions of the world that keep us from developing that kind of deep personal relationship with our Savior, but really it is a matter of the heart. We must first determine that we truly want to be healed and whole. And then we must give our heart to him. That doesn’t mean there is no time for anything else, but when we spend some time each day drawing near to him, we will then think of him more, we will teach others of him more, we endure the crosses of our lives with new eyes.

Sister Chieko Okazaki taught:
"The Savior does not call us to abandon the world; he calls us to come unto him so that he can heal us and make us whole. But to do that, we have to bring him our hearts--all of the pieces we have given elsewhere. He asks us to take care of our daily activities with a heart centered on him.
Our spiritual lives should be our lives, not just a separate part of our lives.”

Only when we know him can we view ourselves and others through the lens of his love and oh, what healing that brings.

As we were going through the experience detailed in this blog I was often frustrated and hurt and angry because of the pain that the actions of my husband and his girlfriend were causing in my life and the lives of my children. But heavenly father gave me a great gift. For a brief time He allowed me to see my husband through the eyes of our savior’s love for him. It was amazing and powerful. I was able to see past the humanness into my husband's spirit. A spirit searching for love and answers and I determined that if the lord loved him regardless of his actions, I would too and perhaps I could be an instrument in father’s hands to help him home.

To understand that our savior loves all of father’s children reminds us that he loves us too. I believe the only real influence we can have on His children is to love them. He will teach us how but first we must come to him and let his love heal us.
Mormon in a letter to his son Moroni tells us how we can start: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure.” Moro. 7: 48

I know that I am heavenly Father’s daughter. He is my Abba, my papa, my daddy! And he is yours. I know he loves me though I seldom feel worthy of His patient, forgiving, gentle love. I know my savior loves me. And I know they love you. His sacrifice for you and for me began before the foundation of this world. I have seen in my minds eye that council in heaven as he listened to the plan of our Father presented to us and wept tears over the possibility that any one of us might not return home. I know that his declaration “Here am I send me” was not only out of love and reverence for our Father, but for unfathomable love for each of us.

I know that he went forth suffering pains, afflictions and temptations of every kind that he might be filled with mercy and compassion so that he would know how and be able to strengthen and comfort us.

I know that in Gethsemane he experienced the totality of all human suffering. I know that he experienced those pains and sorrows for each of us individually—he knows your pains & my pains; he has born the burden for your sins & my sins. And having experienced our pains his love for us grew beyond our ability to comprehend.

"Surely he hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows and with his stripes we are healed". I know that it is through the power of the atonement we can be healed from all sorrows and infirmities. We can be forgiven and live with him again for he rose from the tomb.

We are on the pathway back home. If the fog could lift just slightly we would see just how close we are. We can and we must help each other home. We need not be discouraged if we appear to be at different places on that path from those we love. There are individuals further up ahead who reach back and take our hand just as we can reach out and take a hand to lift another along the way.

He wants us to come home and he knows what it will take for us to get there. All of the commandments he asks us to obey, all of the things he asks us to forsake are not to limit or punish us they are to lift us, unencumbered back to Him.
He has already prepared a place for you and for me in the mansions of our father and he fully expects us to be there.