Love Perfected

So much good has happened in the last week. I am simply overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings when I consider what he has done. He has done great things!

Today he told me something that touched me deeply, in a way that did not happen through study or contemplation, but, strange as it has seemed, through my fears, my doubts, and my desperation.

My doubts rise in solitude. In compassion, however, they flee. I often hear of those who look upon the evils of the human race and the horrors of the natural world and say that there is no Creator, or at least doubt that there ever could be, or that he is both good and powerful. My doubts are the same—when I am centered on myself. I look around at all the evil and question his power, his goodness, and, sometimes, his very existence.

But in compassion I find in me a remedy stirring against doubt: having trusted and believed that our King is who he says he is, I ask for him to show himself to me, not for knowledge's sake, but for peace. Then I look upon the world and something incredible happens: instead of seeing evil, I see those afflicted by it, and my spirit longs for their freedom--not in a merely physical or psychological sense, lest the skeptic agree with me too early--and in this longing I desire to do what I can to bring them to freedom. But in the attempt I find myself lacking the capacity to do that which is most needed in their souls, and I find only one thing that can both satisfy my longing for them while keeping my doubts at bay: the Spirit gives me hope. Hope that a young girl who has nothing left will find peace, and find it in him.

What evidence can be offered to say that this conviction is not borne out of the Spirit within me? How could I sustain my eyes as they look upon this present darkness, if I did not have hope? How could hope be sustained without something manifested before my eyes to keep itself alive?

Do you see? He is not dead or gone. He has put the poor and powerless before us so that we will cry out in doubt to him and thus be filled by him with hope--a hope that will stir us to compassion. We would not be doing what we are doing if we did not believe this hope exists for us and for this girl and for her child. It does. It must! It did not come from my own notions or intentions, but from the One who is here with me.

It is no great thing to desire knowledge of the deep mysteries of the divine, those things that some of our dearest saints have seldom seen, and which even the angels long to look into. It is another thing altogether to desire those things for another's life. This course requires the heart to stretch beyond its limits: to long for insights into his holiness is nothing compared to the longing that others might see his holiness come near to them, for it tears our hearts so badly that hope is our only remedy for our desperation, and selfless love is our only solution for our longing.

This is the love of the Father perfected in a human soul.