I returned from a visit to my daughters in Washington, D.C., this past week. It's never long enough, but that is something for another column.
This week I will write about the trip home.
Whenever I select a seat on the airplane, I always try to choose one by the window. I do so for two reasons. The first is rather superfluous: I love to go fast. I love looking out the window when the plane taxis to its assigned runway, lines up, pauses, then begins rolling, cruising, picking up momentum, then flat-out charges down the runway, straining, straining until the pilot pulls back on the throttle and the plane lifts into the air, sharply angling up and shooting into the clouds.
More thrilling to me, however, is cruising high above the earth and looking down at the magnificent world below. I gain a keener sense of the glory, the grandeur, the vastness of the earth and of the omnipotence of its creator. I suddenly become, to my mind, rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Yet that same sense of insignificance also leads me to marvel over a loving Heavenly Father who validates me and who has done so much for me.
I have to ask why.
Why does the creator of the universe and all things that are in it care about and reach out to me — because I know that he does? Why, how does he not only hear and answer the prayers of one lone cipher among billions of people who have or now live on the earth, but also protect and bless us in myriad unseen and often unrecognized ways?
The "how" has a conceptual explanation. He does it through the power of the Priesthood and the medium of the Holy Ghost. I have felt this power many times in my life as I have been guided, comforted and strengthened by the Savior.
"Why" is also simply answered, yet still amazing: He answers and assists because he loves and cares about me, about my joys and my sorrows, my cares and concerns. He wants what is best for me and longs to guide, to direct, to protect and to reassure me of his love — that he is there with me every step of the way if I choose to turn to him.
It still seems most fantastical but, in reality, this should not be hard for a mother, for a parent, to understand.
For some reason, on this last visit among so many others, as I said goodbye to my daughters — one over lunch and the other at the airport — and walked away, I felt especially bereft. I yearned to run back to them and promise to ever stay with, and comfort and protect them. I fretted over the wickedness of the world and the battles they will inevitably fight. I wondered if I have done enough, if I have taught these daughters all I could and should. Do they know how dearly I love and respect them?
Yet I was able to walk on because I know I will see them again, and that whatever the hour, if there is a pressing need, that they can write or call — to talk, to laugh or to cry. I was able to walk on because I know that they know that I trust them and I love them.
Just as I love my children, the Savior loves us — each and every one of his children. He wants us, whatever the hour, to communicate with him and he constantly seeks to communicate with us — to counsel, to comfort, to fortify, to teach, to lead. All this I was reminded of as I looked down from high above the earth.
I join with one of the greatest scientists to ever study the heavens, Sir Isaac Newton, who testified, "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and d
ominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This Being governs all things not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; the true God is a living, intelligent and powerful Being. He governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He endures forever, and is every where present; and by existing always and every where, he constitutes duration and space. We reverence and adore him as his servants."
We also love God as his children and he loves us as a Father who longs to bless us and lead us back to him.