Unconditional Love
I love Sundays. There are so many reasons why I love them. I love my ward. It's my favorite ward we've ever been in, and that's saying something because we moved 6 times in the first 5 years of our marriage. I love my calling. I get to teach the 16-17 year old youth every sunday during the second hour of church. The youth of these Latter-Days truly inspire me and really are on a higher level than generations past. I love getting to know them and I truly love and care for each one of them. Nothing would make me happier than to see each of them serve full-time missions and go to the temple worthily (either for a mission or to be sealed). Another reason I love Sundays is because since it is a day strictly dedicated to the Lord, and to feeding our spirits, we are just so much happier and there's so much inspiration and revelation to be felt and received.
After church today, Josh and I were just laying on the couch with our son, Mikala, and he did the cutest thing. While cuddling me, he turned his body to face me, took my face in his two little hands, and gave me a big kiss. It was such a tender, ordinary moment that I wanted to capture and save forever. I then had this thought:
The best thing about becoming a parent is that you finally get to experience what true, unconditional love is.
It's true! You may love your spouse, and I definitely love and am in love with mine, but it's hard to have a perfectly unconditional love between adults. There's such intense emotions, differing opinions, disagreements, and too much knowledge and life experience between two adults that definitely complicates things at times. It's not that we choose not to love each other sometimes, but there are definitely times when we don't express the love as much as it should be expressed at all times.
Moroni 8:17 "And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation."
That line, "all children are alike unto me," means that children love as the Savior does. There is no limit, there are no conditions one must meet in order to merit such love.
In marriage I've experienced romantic love; I have also experienced the type of love that manifests as a genuine concern for my husband's well-being. But pure, untainted, all-encompassing, perfectly-forgiving love? That is hard to attain at times. This type of love is felt from children. No matter how many bad days I have where I feel like a horrible mom, Mikala loves me to no end. He doesn't make it a point to remember the time I lost my patience with him, or disregarded his wants/needs to satisfy my own need for convenience or ease...he simply just loves me.
If this is how our Savior loves us, I finally understand how on earth he could have completed the Atonement for us. It all makes sense now.
After church today, Josh and I were just laying on the couch with our son, Mikala, and he did the cutest thing. While cuddling me, he turned his body to face me, took my face in his two little hands, and gave me a big kiss. It was such a tender, ordinary moment that I wanted to capture and save forever. I then had this thought:
The best thing about becoming a parent is that you finally get to experience what true, unconditional love is.
It's true! You may love your spouse, and I definitely love and am in love with mine, but it's hard to have a perfectly unconditional love between adults. There's such intense emotions, differing opinions, disagreements, and too much knowledge and life experience between two adults that definitely complicates things at times. It's not that we choose not to love each other sometimes, but there are definitely times when we don't express the love as much as it should be expressed at all times.
Moroni 8:17 "And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation."
That line, "all children are alike unto me," means that children love as the Savior does. There is no limit, there are no conditions one must meet in order to merit such love.
In marriage I've experienced romantic love; I have also experienced the type of love that manifests as a genuine concern for my husband's well-being. But pure, untainted, all-encompassing, perfectly-forgiving love? That is hard to attain at times. This type of love is felt from children. No matter how many bad days I have where I feel like a horrible mom, Mikala loves me to no end. He doesn't make it a point to remember the time I lost my patience with him, or disregarded his wants/needs to satisfy my own need for convenience or ease...he simply just loves me.
If this is how our Savior loves us, I finally understand how on earth he could have completed the Atonement for us. It all makes sense now.
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