Shouldering the Weight of Love

When I was two, my parents found themselves in financial straits. This wasn't hard to do.  They were single income, living in California and had  three children under the age of three. 

So when something like Christmas rolled around my mom would have no choice but to get very creative.  One year, that meant homemade Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls for me.  But these weren't just any Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls;  they sported a yarn-do unlike any other. Green. 1970's green. If I remember right, it was leftover yarn from a green sweater that mom had knit for my brother. Aren't they awesome?!

As you may suppose, our being needy didn't escape the attention of the neighbors and the good folks at church so these dolls were not the only present I got to open that year. In fact, my mother says that in addition to Ann and Andy...I scored eight other baby dolls that Christmas morning.  That's a lot of loot for one little girl, and apparently it was too much of a good thing.  As the story goes, I surveyed the room after all the presents were opened and did whatever reckoning toddlers do...and it all added up to one thing for me....WAAAHAAAHAA!!! Too many babies! How was I going to take care of all of them?

I've found myself in overwhelming life situations recently that, although I have no memory of my breakdown that Christmas morning 39 years ago, must have been what it felt like to feel responsible for all those babies. More than once I've felt hopelessly inadequate to minister to all the sisters in our HUGE Relief Society. I'm not sure how long God wants me to stay here and be in charge of this organization...but I sure hope His grace tempers the resulting side-effects of my not-knowing-what-I'm doing.  

To all the women that I have failed or whom I will soon fail,  I hope you know that I'm really only two years old and partial to rag dolls.

But there's a flip side to this story.  The flip side has more to do with receiving love as opposed to giving it. It happened as I sat on the end of my bed one evening in 2009, awaiting a PET/CT scan the next day that would reveal more about the cancer that my doctor had detected in my lungs.

I sat there on my bed sobbing, inconsolable. Not because of the test or the fear of it's results, but because I knew my ward and my family would be holding a special fast for me the following day. I felt the gravity of being the object of someone else's sacrifice. Someone else's willingness to be uncomfortable. It was more than I could handle. I did not know how to accept all that love. It was in some ways, simply too much. Too heavy.

Can you imagine...how are we going to handle feeling all of God's love when we are finally in His presence? I think of the people in the scriptures that fall down as if they were dead. That are "exceedingly astonished" when they feel His love. I'm convinced that we have only sampled His love for us in minute, manageable portions. Someday it's going to go right through us down to the marrow of our bones and change every ounce of every cell in our body. It will be glorious and we will never be the same. Will our old selves even be recognizable? Questions.