Precious Souls

Precious. 

What does it even mean?

: of high price or great value; very valuable or costly.
: highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial, or moral quality.
: dear, beloved.
: excessively delicate, refined, or nice.

. . . .

What do you consider to be precious? When I asked myself the same question, I quickly came up with answers like these:

- my family.
- my time on this earth.
- the gospel.
- the world and its wonderful natural beauty.
- my violin.
- my wedding ring {because of what it symbolizes}
- my health and that of my loved ones.

While I danced around the subject, I never really hit the most important thing right on the head. . . my soul.

"Behold, the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." {Doctrine and Covenants 18:10}

. .

"For behold, this is my work and my glory-- to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." {Moses 1:39}

. . . .

If one soul is great, then every. single. soul  is great. The Lord doesn't have favorites. You can't brown nose Heavenly Father by staying after class and organizing the books in the classroom. You can't wash His windows and earn a ticket to the Celestial Kingdom. It just doesn't work that way.

However, there is at the very least one thing you can do that will earn you happiness in this life and the next one. . .

"Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people.

"And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!

"And now, if your joy will be great with one soul that you have brought unto me into the kingdom of my Father, how great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me!" {Doctrine and Covenants 18: 14-16}

We are each entitled to let everybody know how important they are in the eyes of the Lord, but that's not always easy. I, for one, have a really hard time "preaching" the gospel to those around me. Missionary work scares me out of a certified year of my life every time I think about doing it. If you locked me in a room with a perfectly friendly person, gave me a Book of Mormon, and told me I wouldn't be let out until I told them about the Church, I would probably die there. It's not that I'm ashamed of what we believe, but rather I'm afraid that I won't do our beliefs justice. I'm afraid I'll trip over my tongue {after all, I have a horrible habit of doing that when I'm nervous. . . just ask the poor young kid who came for a trial lesson and I commented on how his violin smelled. . . just don't ask :). They have a very unique fragrance, okay?!? Sheesh. . .  }. I'm afraid that they won't treat it as something important, when in reality, it means everything.

I'm afraid they won't believe.

That's the worst of all. I'm scared spit-less that they'll look me in the eye, say 'Thanks so much, but you're a crazy lady' and walk away.  I will have failed to convince them of the truth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and perhaps also the worth of their immortal soul.

{source}

. . . .

In the Church, we have Visiting Teachers, right? Right. I've talked about the Relief Society a time or twelve before, so this probably isn't new to a lot of you. Each month, we are encouraged to get in contact with the sisters we've been assigned to watch over in order to see how they are and if we can be of any help to them and their family. We are to uplift them and strengthen them in every and any way.

It's a calling from Heavenly Father; a mandate to serve.

However, life gets busy. . . and I swear that the end of the month is the worst. If I have failed to check in with my sisters by the 15th of the month, it's the 31st {or 30th!} before I can blink and I'm out of time. A day late and a dollar short, in fact. Visiting Teaching is very, very important to me, but I find myself lacking in my ability to show that by my actions.

To make matters worse, I often hear of stories of sisters who were inspired to check on their sisters without any notice at all, and it ends up being at just the right second. For one reason or another, that sister needed help at that exact moment. TA DA!  There was their Visiting Teacher. . . come to save the day! {take THIS story by President Eyring, for example. The story begins at the 4:19 mark}

I've always imagined myself saving the day for someone. . . being inspired to help exactly when I'm needed. But the years have ticked by, and I've never really felt the prompting from Heaven to randomly check in on a sister that I visit. As a result, I have constantly struggled with the idea of "not being good enough". Maybe I'm not spiritually in-tune enough to recognize the prompting even if it bit me in the armpit. . . maybe this, maybe that.

These are thoughts I've struggled with for a while now. Satan just loves it when I get down on myself and think I'm not good enough to try, or to try again. He loves it when I let the month wiz by without calling up my sisters to let them know I'm thinking about them. It makes me doubt my worth as a righteous person, and even worse, it can make my sisters doubt their worth.

As I was struggling yet again with my feelings of inadequacy on the "receiving revelation" front, I stumbled across this quote in the "Daughters In My Kingdom" book:

"I believe when we determine in our hearts that by and with the blessings of God our Heavenly Father we will accomplish a certain labor, God gives us the ability to accomplish that labor; but when we lay down, when we become discouraged, when we look at the top of the mountain and say it is impossible to climb to the summit, while we never make an effort it will never be accomplished." {President Heber J. Grant}

How true that is. If I keep focused on all the things I can't do {I can't preach the gospel; I don't know what to say. I can't go visiting teaching; I can't receive the revelation to know how/when to help. . . }, I'll never do them.  But if I can put forth even a teeny tiny amount of faith, the Lord will help me accomplish whatever it is I am asked to do. It's as simple and straight forward as that. It's not always easy. . . but simple? Yes.

. . . .

We can do it. Whatever the Lord asks of us; we can do. I pinky promise. I don't care how insignificant you feel you are. . . you are NOT insignificant to Heavenly Father. He knows each of us and our strengths. And as intimidating as it seems, He also knows our weaknesses. We can always, always, always rely on Him for help and encouragement.

There is no way to measure how precious we are to Him. We just have to believe Him.