I love you, I do!

I love you.  I do.  Each and every one of you.  I don’t know all of the so many of you out there all over the world that read my blog but I love you still the same?  How can I possibly know that you ask?  Because every time that I look to see a post that I have written and read where all of you have read it from all over the world I smile from head to toe and I think that I might even shine a little bit.  What else could do that than love? 

            You come from here at my home in the United States, many that I know and don’t and from all over the world such as, Germany and France, Ireland and Hungary.  Russia, the Ukraine, Iraq and Kuwait, the United Kingdom and Canada, the Philippines and India, the Netherlands, Romania, South Korea and South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and a great handful more.  I wish I could call reference to you all of you but after a couple of weeks BlogSpot sadly groups you all into an area of reference, a continent rather than an actual country.  We’ve even had some very small areas that the Gibson household wasn’t quite sure where it was and of course I looked it up on the trusted internet like you do. 

I now know where Moldova is, a beautiful little country with lots of green and such beautiful architecture, right in the middle of Romania and the Ukraine.  I feel like I have been all over every beautiful little section of South America and quite frankly the rest of the world.  And all of this I have done while sitting in front of my little computer in my little bedroom googling all of you.

            Yes, I think that I love you all so very much. 

            During Stake Conference today our theme was based around that first great commandment of all, “Love One Another.”  And it has gotten me thinking all day.  Sometimes I think it is easier to love someone that you don’t know, like all of you who make me smile from so far away, than the very people who we see and interact with every day.  I need to change that.  I need to see those people with Christ’s eyes and with Christ’s heart instead of my own.  I think if I did my heart would hurt with love inside of me it would be so big.

 I had a time where I was asked to be of service for someone that I didn’t even know by someone that I only knew through professional reasons.  I gladly accepted the weekly obligation thrilled that Heavenly Father had found a place for me to serve his children.  Week after week I continued in this service that only took ten or fifteen minutes out of my week once a week to do and I felt glad, but one day I had a clarifying moment that took it to a new level for me that I had never had before.  At the last moment as I was saying goodbye until next week to those younger members of this cute family that I was able to help, my heart started pounding so fast that I thought it might burst out of my chest and tears came unbidden to my eyes and for one brief second it was as if I could feel the Savior’s love for them in my heart and His thoughts in my head.  “I love them,” He spoke.  “Thank you for loving them for me today.”

            Now, can I say that the very little, literally only a matter of a few minutes every week that has come out of my life, that I really have done near to nothing in helping that family, only the slightest bit, but God did something in return by letting me feel His love.  And it’s moments like those that He gives us, not for us to be some great help to our fellow man, though that is definitely a very important part of it, but because He wants us to have little tastes of the strength of His love for all of us so that we can strive one day to become just like Him.

            My nine year old Sam said to me the other day, “Mom, do you know what my favorite part about Christmas Eve is?”

            I instantly thought he would mention our family tradition of opening all the family presents a day before most of the rest of the world, or perhaps Papa’s house and potato soup, or even Christmas Jammies at bed that night, but it wasn’t. 

            “I love that all of the kids sleep in one room and we are all stuck together.  There’s nothing better.”

            Sometimes Sam drives his four bigger sisters completely nuts, I think Steph puts up with him better than most, but even though Sam is such a totally easy going mellow boy to get along with he is still a boy in a houseful of girls and more times than not his teasing as all little boys do tends to annoy them, but he’s right, each and every one of them loves being stuck together in the same room on Christmas Eve.

            Sometimes the traditions that you put together out of necessity and in this case sanity so Santa can sneak around without getting caught, are really the things that draw a family together and teach them all about that Christ Like Love that Heavenly Father shows us so we can become just like His Son someday.

            So now when you go about your days this week, whether you are out and about at work or nestled tightly at home working your little tooshies off, remember that I love you, I do, and that most of all Heavenly Father and His most perfect Son love you too.