Thanksgiving – Love & Law

This was my visiting teaching thought that I shared with my sisters in November 2009.

As I was thinking about the messages from our most recent General Conference I decided to read over Elder Oak’s talk called “Love and Law”.  I found his talk to be really profound during conference and wanted to share a part of it with you.

First, consider the love of God, described so meaningfully this morning by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” the Apostle Paul asked. Not tribulation, not persecution, not peril or the sword (see Romans 8:35). “For I am persuaded,” he concluded, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, . . . nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God” (verses 38–39).

There is no greater evidence of the infinite power and perfection of God’s love than is declared by the Apostle John: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). Another Apostle wrote that God “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). Think how it must have grieved our Heavenly Father to send His Son to endure incomprehensible suffering for our sins. That is the greatest evidence of His love for each of us!

I was really struck when reading this by the incredible love our Heavenly Father has for each one of us.  The power of His love is so great that nothing can separate us from it – not tribulation, persecution, peril, the sword, death, life, angels, principalities, powers or any other creature.  I know I’ve had some times in my life where I felt like the things I was going through put me far from God’s love.  I’ve felt at these times like I’d gotten myself into situations where He could barely reach me anymore.  However at these times it seems His love has found me more powerfully than ever.  It seems at the darkest points in our lives our Father in Heaven is able to reach through to us and lift us from our sufferings and prove to us how great His love for us truly is.

This week, as we’re getting ready for Thanksgiving, I hope we remember to give thanks for the love of our Heavenly Father.  I know that I am so grateful for the love He has for me.  I am filled with gratitude when I think that His love for us is so profound that He would sacrifice His only begotten Son so that we could be forgiven of our sins and healed from all of our sorrows and afflictions.  I know that our Savior lives and loves us