Today our lesson was, "How can I know my Heavenly Father?" Though I started reading the text of the lesson just last night, unbeknownst to me I'd been preparing for it for the last couple of weeks. I have always known that I have a Father in Heaven and that He loves me. I've felt it many times throughout my life, sometimes more strongly than others.
When I returned home from my mission I had promised myself I would always continue my personal scripture study. However, after not too long, my study habits began to relax and I found myself going sometimes weeks at a time without reading. I've made tepid attempts at getting my reading habits back to how they were when I was a missionary, but with pretty poor results.
This new year, my resolution is to read the Book of Mormon every day for 30 minutes. I've only done it once before, a whole year without missing a day. On Friday night I started to read my 30 minutes. I'm kind of a clock Nazi when it comes to my 30 minutes, so once I've started reading, I don't like anything to interrupt me. But about 5 minutes into my reading I came to a verse in 3 Nephi, chapter 27. The words that caught my attention were these,
"...therefore if ye call upon the Father...if it be in my name the Father will hear you."
It's something I've already learned, but it was like I was hearing it for the first time. When I pray, my Father really hears me. He is listening. I felt like I should write down what I had learned, or at least underline the words. But I didn't have anything to write with nearby, it was dark and Diego and Lucia were already asleep. Plus, I didn't want to get up and interrupt my 30 minutes. So I kept reading.
A few verses later came these words,
"Write the things which ye have seen and heard..."
Okay, okay. I'll look for a pencil in a second. I didn't want to interrupt my reading. Next verse,
"Write the works of this people..."
I get it. You want me to write this down. The next two verses,
"For behold, out of the books which have been written...shall this people be judged..."
"...therefore out of the books which have been written shall the world be judged."
Got it. Put down the book, go look for something to write with. I ended up spending the rest of my 30 minutes writing in my journal. I read the entire entry to my Young Women's class today.
At the end of my lesson, I started to bear my testimony to the girls about how being a mother has changed the way I understand my Heavenly Father's love. This is the blog post I started to write but never finished. But today when I explained it, it made perfect sense (at least to me).
I love my daughter more than words can express. If for some reason I were to die, or be separated from her now, she wouldn't really be able to remember me as she got older. Nevertheless, I would want so badly for her to know me. To really know me. What I look like, how I act, what I believe in. And if there were some way for her to communicate with me, I would want her to do it as often as she could. I would love more than anything to listen to her problems and her trials, and also to her joys and successes.
I know that our Heavenly Father feels exactly the same way. We are His children. He wants us to talk to Him. He wants us to remember Him, to know how He is, to know Him. He wants us to return to His presence because He loves us. I imagine that He misses us.
So here's the invitation. Hebrews 4:16
"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
No comments:
Post a Comment