The Atonement

Every once in a while, I take a step back and realize just how little I actually understand about this incredible gift and how much my Father in Heaven actually loves me. Me. Just me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an isolated case, he loves us all, but for just a second, I need to focus on his love for me. I never realized how I pictured meeting the Savior until I was really thinking about it in church on Sunday. I've been studying 3 Nephi where the Savior comes to the people, so it got me to thinking about it. I'm sure we can all imagine or remember back to a time when we've met someone famous, or important in some way shape or form. I've always found that it's kind of a let down. Like the image of the person never really lives up to the hype because you just feel so insignificant to that person afterwards. Maybe they were signing autographs and they treated you like a number. Like an obligatory signature because they were being paid to sit there. Or maybe, they talked to you for five mins and got the niceties out of the way, and they were gracious, but you had imagined something grand, and that five mins didn't compare to the reception you were hoping for in your head. Maybe, they were your favorite of something and you knew so much about them and somehow felt like they knew you, only to find out they were not in the least bit interested in anything about you. Your own insignificance staring you in the face. I realized on Sunday, this was how I pictured seeing my Savior. I pictured meeting him and him taking his five mins obligatory time to talk to me and moving on to more important/righteous people. How wrong I was. He is perfect, in every way. I was comparing him to mere mortal men who do not have the capacity to love me as he loves me. In a way that he knows my strengths and my weaknesses and he knows me better than I know myself. He wants to see me. He wants to spend time with me and he cares about the things I care about. I do not know when I bought into this idea that I was insignificant to him but at some point I did, and it stuck. I realized that I was comparing him to all the people who have let me down in the past. All the heartache I have felt, it would be no different. I know I was wrong. I see his hand in my life every day. I can name off blessings galore that I see in my life hourly and yet, somehow, someone was still able to convince me that I wasn't good enough for his love. I think this comes from a lack of understanding of who he is and of his Atonement. I want our meeting one day. to be a reunion of old friends. I want to know his face the second I see it. I want to feel his love in every aspect of my life and reflect that love in everything I do. Very rarely do I see myself the way he sees me. but I want to live my life so that I see others the way he sees them. That is charity. I want to feel that pure love of Christ. Then, and only then can I begin to understand his love for me.