The Most Most Precious Gift of All

I felt the Connection that links and binds me to every human being yesterday, that can move quickly through me like a jolt of electricity, pleasantly surprising me and filling me with gratitude and joy. Where I look on into a traffic jam and feel an immediate kinship with every person on the road. Although I don’t know the people sitting next to me, I know whose they are. I know how God feels about them. I understand the grand plan that leaves a space for everyone who has ever taken a breath. Every single person will be accounted for.

I imagine God has a place for everyone just like a mother who sets a plate for every child at the dinner table. And if even one is missing, it is not the same. I know when I see humankind in this intimate perspective, God’s love has been activated in my heart.

I was checking out at a grocery store and there was a single dad with 2 children in line before me. The cashier could not find a price for an item. I could tell this single father was worried about making the people behind him wait. After a few minutes more of waiting, he turned to me and said, “I’m sorry”. I told him that it’s no big deal and to not worry. While I waited, I noticed each of his children. The same innocence and vulnerability I see in my own children’s eyes, I saw in their’s. A father just doing regular things on a regular day trying his best to take care of his family. A father similarly worrying about his young daughters and son’s needs, the future, the burdens of life just like me and so many of us. I have never seen this family before and probably will never see them again, but in noticing them and searching their eyes, it reinforced and strengthened my love for the beautiful human family and even more for the great God that watches over us and created us.

I am grateful for the perspective God extends to me in these regular moments to teach me that I’m not alone and that I am in fact a part of a very big family. I have brothers and sisters for which I don’t know their names, but that I am just as much a part of as my family that gathers for the holidays. To feel this love heal the blinding disconnection I feel from time to time, especially during upheaval, gives me strength to love my fellow human beings and my God even more. To have a small inkling into the hearts and minds of human beings prepares me for the moments when it may not be so easy to relate or love. Or when I fail to see the similarity in others more than our shared commonality. And it prepares me to be willing to do whatever it takes to care and lend a hand. I know I’ll have to lean on these sort of similar joining experiences during difficult times when people may do things that are confusing to me or when there is division in perspective or purpose.

So…please, today will you encourage the frenzied customer ahead of you in the check out line, especially when you are in a hurry. Or pause long enough to try and find the humanness, the heart and soul inside the people all around you. Please be careful and mindful of the judgements you hold onto about others. Reconsider those judgments always so your mind doesn’t grow dull and numb. If our judgements serve only to separate or to place others in contempt, then please address them. We all stand to lose so much as a result of this costly pastime. We are not always wise enough to perceive others with clarity. And please, when in doubt, consider the feelings of others like you would your own. I often heard one of my friends repeat this phrase when facing difficult situations, “Kindness is never wasted”. I hope we can learn to splurge when it comes to spending our most precious resources of consideration, understanding and genuine kindness on each other. And especially during this time of year when we are all feeling a little spendy because in fact Charity is the greatest gift of all. (1Nephi 15:36) (1 Corinthians 13).
Moroni 7:
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail–
47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.