My Epiphany on Love

I get epiphanies now and then, and when I do, it's a personal landmark.  Sometimes I might get one or two a year.  Sometimes less.  Rarely more.  So when one happens, I sit up and take notice.  Recently I had two in one day.

I define epiphanies as those moments when a true spiritual principle, zings into my brain, the mental light bulbs flash, and something that I had never really thought about, suddenly becomes clear and logical.  I learned also that my epiphany will likely not be your epiphany.  If I explain it to you with all my inner gusto, you will likely respond with -- Yeah ... and?  But I want to share it anyway, not for you necessarily, but to document it for myself.

I believe in the principle of spiritual gifts.  These gifts come from God, and there is an endlessly long list of them.  A few examples:  Patience.  Compassion.  Belief.  Discernment.  Desire for knowledge.  Faith.  I believe that all these qualities are part of God, and our goal is to become like Him. So little by little, we strive for, and cultivate these qualities.

They are gifts because they are given freely.  "Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:" (Matthew 7:7)   Some gifts are just naturally there, and some we need to sincerely ask for.  It's that sincerity part that can trip us up.  We have to truly want it and that's where the striving comes into play.

So ..... love.  It too is a spiritual gift.  And here's how my epiphany came about.  A little less than a year ago, Husband and I were reassigned in our church to serve in a congregation of 18 to 30 year olds.  We are there to provide stability, support, and some leadership.  One of the gals who served as the president of the women's organization within this group, would tell us ALL THE TIME how much the Lord loves us.  In my church, I've heard it more times than I can count.

Yes, yes, I'd think as I have thought a million times.  I know He does.  Thank you for the reminder.   But watching this cute little gal, who was barely over 5 feet tall if that, shy and uncomfortable in front of people, quiet yet always smiling ..... I realized something.  She KNOWS this.  She KNOWS God loves us.  And HOW does she know?  Because SHE LOVES US.

In our church, when you are given an assignment to work with a particular group of people, you almost inevitably grow to love them, and often rather quickly.  (I've always heard you grow to love those you serve, but I've often felt that didn't necessarily work for me.  I mean, in all honesty, I have a hard time loving someone who has let their house dwindle into a state of horrible neglect, who then needs my help sorting and cleaning which is what they should have been doing all along ..... or needs help moving but hasn't even started gathering boxes before the trucks arrive ...... and as you see by my whining, I don't quite have the gift of compassion locked down.)  But I know that whenever I have served as a teacher, I LOVE my class.  I LOVE the people who actually come trusting that I will not waste their time.  Many times I have felt gratitude that they allowed me to teach their class.

My point:  How does that love happen?  What causes it?  It is a gift ..... directly from God, that seems to come with that assignment.  But not just that.  It is a bit of HIS love, channeled through us.  HE loves these people and He wants me to tell them.

The morning after the birth of my first baby, after a long labor and all the trauma and excitement, and after I had had a chance to sleep, the nurse brought in this little bundled stranger and actually left him alone with me in all my ineptness.  I remember his eyes looked very furrowed and serious, as if he was dubiously sizing up this silly 21 year old girl who was supposed to be his mother.  "Do you KNOW what you're doing??" he seemed to say.  As I held him I remember quite vividly, in a single moment, falling deeply in love.  Here was someone I had known for a very short time, yet I suddenly felt like I would do anything to protect him.  The conduit of love from God to a mother is particularly powerful, and it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.  And that was, and still is, God's love channeled .... or more like .... gushing through me.  

All love comes from, and is a bit of God's love, and He has an infinite reservoir to share.  My love for my family, for example, is God's love, channeled through me.  Therefore, when I love someone, I KNOW God loves them.  Because it's HIS love for them that I'm feeling.  He loved them first and is sharing some of that love with me.  That thought hit me on a Sunday morning, two weeks ago.  Which segues to the obvious .... the more people we love, or in other words, the more people for whom we feel God's love, the closer we are to being like Him, who loves us all.

And to the non-believer:  What better proof of a God, than the existence/reality of love?

So if you're thinking, Yeah .... and? ... it's okay.  As I said, my epiphanies aren't necessarily anyone else's.

Later, in another post, I'll share the other one I had that day.

"cast your mind upon the night"

Yes, I know.  I said I was condensing my life into my other blog, but you should know by now that my declarations often melt into a puddle of goo when my next whim takes hold.  

So here I am back in my "serious" blog, because I want to record something that is very important to me, for my posterity.  Most of them have heard this story, but now it'll be in written form.  

My religious faith includes what we think of as spiritual experiences.  These are moments when we feel we are being influenced by something or someone beyond this world.  That someone, to me, is God.  And one night in June, of 2004, I had one such experience.  Some background:

It was a few weeks before our youngest son was to leave for two years to serve as a missionary for our church.  He was our third son to serve a mission.  Mormon young men, upon reaching age 19 (today they can go at age 18) have the responsibility to give two years of their lives to the Lord.  They do not choose nor do they find out where they'll serve until a few months before they board the plane.   It could be anywhere from Montana to Mozambique. 

Our oldest son served in Tijuana, Mexico, a place so dangerous that I doubt missionaries are currently found there.  He walked on streets that the police avoided.  Our second son went to Venezuela, where, due to political upheaval, I also strongly doubt you'll encounter missionaries today.  

So by the time our third son came of age, I was ready for somewhere relatively  .... safe.  Each son was different.  Oldest Son had lived away from home and didn't go until he was 22.  He had enough street-smarts that I knew he could take care of himself.  Second Son had always been very adaptable.  He seemed to fit in wherever he went, and made friends fairly easily.  Youngest Son was not as adaptable.  He never liked change.  And instead of him getting called to serve in a non-threatening place like Rigby, Idaho, as I had hoped for, he received his letter directing him to Ecuador.  He was to go the farthest of his brothers.  

Brainless, but well-meaning, friends told me of the dangers lurking in Ecuador.  It has the highest poverty rate in South America.  My less-adaptable son had a LOT of adapting ahead of him.  And I was scared for him.  Really scared.  This 6 foot tall, 19 year old young man was my baby.  

I never told him how frightened I was.  And I honestly don't remember if his own excitement sufficiently crowded out his fears.  Yes, of course he had fears.  He would spend two months in a training school to learn Spanish which he would than have to depend upon for 22 months in a far-away, foreign land with only four phone calls home.  He would not see his family, home, nor anything familiar, for 24 months.   Thank goodness for emails.   I learned later that his older brother told him that if anything scary happened, "Don't tell Mom,"  he said,  "Tell me."  

So back to that few weeks before he was to leave.  We'd been getting all his stuff together, ie, paperwork and legal docs, clothing, immunizations, etc., and the departure time was drawing closer and closer.   Very late one night I couldn't sleep.  My mind was writhing with fear.  Would he struggle?  Would he suffer?  Would he be miserable?  Would it be hard?  

So I got up from bed and went downstairs to the family room.  I knelt down at the couch and hashed it all out with God.  My words rambled as I pleaded for my son ... and for myself.  I remember my head was down on my arms on the couch, and my own breathing seemed loud in my ears, like rushing water.  I repeated over and over my list of worries, crying for help.  Then it happened.

Suddenly everything was still.  My breathing, the rushing sound, my frantic thoughts all seemed to stop.  I felt an intense quiet.  I remember stopping and raising my head, instantly noticing that something was different.  What was it?  It suddenly felt like I was inside a very delicate bubble that was quiet and still, with all the commotion shut outside.  I got up and took a few steps, almost afraid that if I moved too quickly, I'd burst the bubble, allowing the trauma to come rushing back in.  But it didn't.  So I went to bed.  

The next morning I was still inside my peaceful bubble.  Not that I didn't worry at all, but I wasn't afraid anymore.  Those last few weeks flew by with all the packing and preparations, and soon we were off to the airport.  His dad and I decided we would fly to Utah with him, and personally take him to the Mission Training Center in Provo.   Our oldest son and his wife, who lived out of state at the time and didn't get to send off their brother at home, surprised him by arriving in Utah and joining us at the MTC.   We attended the meeting that they used to provide for the families of new missionaries, and then hugged and cried as we watched him walk through a door and out of our sight for two years.   It wasn't until a week later, when we got our first letter, that we learned that within ten minutes of leaving us, he practically bumped into his two best friends who had both arrived there several weeks earlier.  We like to call these little unexpected blessings, "tender mercies".

Best friends throughout childhood

Another tender mercy:  In the MTC at that time, the missionaries were divided into over 100 different congregations, called branches, with adult men assigned to each branch, serving as Branch Presidents, similar to pastors or ministers.  My brother was serving as one of the many Branch Presidents in the MTC at that time.   I have no doubt that the Lord personally did some shuffling and our son miraculously ended up in my brother's branch and under his watch.  During those two months our son was in Provo, I didn't have to depend solely on letters to hear how he was doing.   

There is a scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants that reads, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things.  Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter?  What greater witness can you have than from God?"  (6:22-23)

The homecoming.  Waiting at the airport.  

My conclusion:  Nine years later, I still draw strength from that night.  I know that our sons' missions were right in the Lord's eyes.  I know how it feels to have the Lord's spirit, AKA the Holy Ghost, enwrap me in peace.  The bubble never burst.  I knew our son would be fine and he was.  In fact he thrived in Ecuador.  He loved his mission and came home able to prattle off Spanish fluently with his two older brothers.

Our three former missionary sons.

As they say in our church, they leave as boys, and come home as men.  The same maturity happens to our young women who are able to go.  And we mothers are reminded that they also have a set of Heavenly Parents who love them and are just as concerned that they make it safely back to the home that matters most.