There are times in life — perhaps even more often than not — that we feel insignificant, inadequate. We wonder about our purpose and if we’re fulfilling it. We wonder if God is pleased with us. Sometimes when we’re feeling especially imperfect and inconsequential, we even wonder if God truly loves us.
The answer is as incredible as it is simple: Yes. Heavenly Father loves us more than we can possibly comprehend.
A few years ago, a woman I met told me a story about God’s love that I’ve never forgotten. The woman who related this experience to me had, a few months prior, gone through a very difficult time. Discouraged and completely disheartened, she turned to her Heavenly Father in prayer and asked for something that was basically, as she put it, “like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.” Yet despite the seemingly impossible nature of what she’d requested, within a few days, the very thing that she prayed for occurred!
Amazed and filled with gratitude at the direct fulfillment of her prayer, she turned to Heavenly Father again and said, “Heavenly Father, I’m just one out of the billions of Thy children on this Earth. How did you hear me? How could you possibly answer my prayer when there are so many other things for you to do?”
Immediately after she asked that question, though, a voice in her mind clearly said, “Don’t consider how — consider why.”
That answer — the “why” — came to her immediately: Heavenly Father had answered her prayer because loves her infinitely, just as He loves each of His children.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf explained:
And while we may look at the vast expanse of the universe and say, “What is man in comparison to the glory of creation?” God Himself said we are the reason He created the universe! His work and glory—the purpose for this magnificent universe—is to save and exalt mankind. In other words, the vast expanse of eternity, the glories and mysteries of infinite space and time are all built for the benefit of ordinary mortals like you and me. Our Heavenly Father created the universe that we might reach our potential as His sons and daughters.
This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “You Matter to Him,” October 2011).
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To me, that is one of the most beautiful, reassuring truths of the gospel: the God of the Universe who created worlds without end considers us His most precious creations. We mean everything to Him! Knowing that, we can recognize with assurance that, as it says in 2 Nephi 26, everything that He does is for our good, even when we can’t see it.
He loves us, and that’s what everything — every commandment, every principle, every scripture story — in the gospel comes back to. He knows you and He loves you. Trust Him!
Amy Carpenter is the site manager and editor for LDSBlogs.com. She served a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Denver, Colorado, where she learned to love mountains and despise snow. She has a passion for peanut butter, dancing badly, and most of all, the gospel.
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