Like I mentioned in the last post, I went to Girls’ Camp on Thursday and Friday. I don’t think it’s a secret that I love my calling. I love my young women, and I love the other women I serve with. They have become some of my best friends in the ward. I drove up on Thursday with one of the new Laurel advisors, Cassie, and even though we just met Thursday morning, we are like new best friends. She is so much fun. It was nice to be able to spend Thursday and Friday with the girls. On Thursday evening, there was an awesome fireside about being virtuous and choosing to marry in the temple. On Friday I drove up with Lindsey, and there was another fireside where President Tew talked about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.
I love the firesides they have at Girls’ Camp. They are always so powerful, so strengthening, even to the leaders. As I sat there Thursday night, I had one of those moments as I gazed up at the stars and listened to the speakers bear testimony of the Savior and of Heavenly Father’s plan for us. By one of those moments, I mean the ones that are so brief and seem to last just a small second where you have absolute clarity that Heavenly Father loves you and that the things that you believe are true. I always know that, each and every day, but nobody lives their lives with a constant and overwhelming burning in their bosom. It is not always easy to FEEL or to SEE the love of God in our lives, especially in hard times where you seem to wonder where He is or why He’s allowing certain things to happen. But the presence of emotional pain is not the absence of Heavenly Father’s love for us.
At camp, there were quotes posted everywhere that the girls were supposed to read and check off in the Spiritual Challenge booklets they were given to complete during the week. Two quotes really stood out to me.
“Think of the purest most all-consuming love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount – that is the measure of God’s love for you.” - Dieter F. Uchtdorf
“Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.” – Ezra Taft Benson
A lot of times, we live by faith. I think that’s how we live most of the time, in fact. But sometimes, after our faith has been tried and proved and we have remained true, Heavenly Father sends witnesses, powerful personal witnesses that the things we believe in and fight for are true. And that His love is infinite and all-consuming. As I sat looking up at the sky, I had just such an experience. I’ve had it before. The clouds part, light shines through, and for a moment you are enlightened more so than you ever have been before. It is clarity, it is warmth, it is a surety, an assurance that you have felt that love before – that you have actually abided in its presence. And in that moment I think, “I KNOW this love, I know my Father.This feeling is familiar to me. This feeling is home.” And it isn't familiar as if I’ve known it on this earth, but it’s familiar as if it is a memory embedded in my soul. And then, as quickly as it comes, it is gone, but the memory of this witness and surety that I just felt the love of God so tangibly, as if I could reach out, grab it, and wrap it around me, stays with me forever. Now, these quiet, powerful moments don’t come all the time, and I don’t think that Heavenly Father intends for us to always feel things so intensely, (at least not yet in this life) but I believe it is a tender mercy poured down from Heaven, a glimpse of what it was like before I came to this earth when I was in the direct presence of His love and what it will be like when I am one day again in the presence of that all-consuming love, only this time to go no more out of that presence.
I like the quote that we will be startled to see our Father’s face and realize how well we know Him and how familiar His face will be to us because I believe that to be absolutely true. I have felt it. It’s not just that I’ve been taught about Him in church, but in those intense moments it’s as if I REMEMBER that I know Him, that I REMEMBER what my home in His love feels like. I remember having this same powerful experience when I was 19 and sitting in a chapel with Richard G. Scott while he spoke to Las Vegas young single adults. I can remember the lighting in the room, the feelings I felt, the words that were spoken, and exactly where I was looking just as I can when I had the experience at Girls Camp while gazing up at the stars Thursday night. It was as if nothing separated me from God - not this earth, not the Heavens, not my lack of remembrance of my life before this earth. While I have felt the power of the Spirit so many times in my life, these specific events are a bit different. It is amazing to me that these moments have been so quick but powerful enough to remain at the forefront of my mind for the rest of my life. That is exactly what the love of God is to me – powerful, all-consuming, and entirely unique. I am so grateful for these witnesses, where it seems to no longer be faith but instead becomes knowledge.
I bore my testimony to the girls Friday night during testimony meeting about this love and these experiences and told them that one day we will abide in the physical presence of Heavenly Father’s love. And instead of being just a moment, those feelings will be eternal. I want to be good enough to always feel what I have felt in those brief but powerful moments. I want to make it and be able to be in the presence of God, and I want those that I love to eternally abide in that presence with me. There is nothing like that love, nothing even slightly comparative to the joy and peace I have felt when I have been given those merciful glimpses of what it will be like when I can reach out and touch Him and see the love in His face for me personally. I know that I was there before, and I can’t wait until I can be there again with those that I love.
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