The Lord Is My Light

      
   Words will never be able to adequately express the love and gratitude that I have for my Savior, Jesus Christ. I know that may be a cliché statement to make – but it’s one I mean with all my heart.

In Matthew 27 verse 22, it reads, "What shall I do then with this Jesus which is called Christ?" - I'm not entirely sure why, but the one thing that continued to come to my mind is the hymn, “The Lord Is My Light”. To echo the words in that song, I say with strong conviction, “the Lord IS my light – then why should I fear? By day and by night, His presence is near. He is my salvation from sorrow and sin. This blessed assurance the spirit doth bring. The Lord is my light; He is my joy, and my song. By day and by night, He leads me along. The Lord is my strength. I know in His might I’ll conquer at length. My weakness in mercy He covers with power. And walking by faith, I am blest every hour. The Lord is my light, my all and in all. There is in His sight, no darkness at all. He is my Redeemer, my Savior, and King. With Saints and with angels His praises I’ll sing.”

        Christ is my everything. Without Him, I am nothing. Without Him, I would not be the person I am today – I would not have direction or drive – I would not have hope or faith in things I don’t know of that are in my future – I would not be able to love as I love or serve as I serve. I would not act as I act, say what I say, if it were not for that perfect man that once walked on this earth so many years ago – to pay the price for us to once again all live in heaven as one big eternal family – reunited as we once were before this world was.

        I can say I have spiritually felt the prints in His hands and the mark on his side – for I have truly beheld the miraculous power of the Atonement in my life. I have felt its power – and because of that, I am that much more in debt to my Savior and the sacrifices He made for me and my many, many faults. It reminds me of something I read in “Believing Christ” by Stephen Robinson. In speaking about the gift of the Atonement, he says, “But how can I possibly deserve such a gift? – Don’t be silly. You can’t. You don’t. This gift is offered because I love you and want to help you, not because I owe it to you. – But how can I ever repay you? – There you go again. Don’t you get it yet? You can’t repay me, not you or all the billions like you. Gifts of this magnitude can never be repaid. For what I’ve done out of love for you, you can only love me back, and seek to become what I am – a giver of good gifts. And that is good news.”

        I just love that – as guilty as it makes me feel for doing any sort of wrong – it makes me so incredibly thankful for my Savior; for the fact that through anything I do, no matter what it is, He will always be there ready to take me back; so ready to forgive and forget; so comforting through any pain – for anyone, at any time. It’s incredible the real love He has for each and every one of us.

       I've loved really reading and dissecting the life of Christ this semester in my New Testament class. It has helped my testimony grow tremendously, because I’ve been able to learn of Him as man, not necessarily just a God. He seems so much more real when I can compare His mortal life to mine. I loved the lesson my teacher, Brother Wilson, taught about when He first entered into the world – how the song “Away In a Manger” isn’t true in the fact that Christ didn’t come into the world as a God. He was a baby who cried and was loud and hard to handle growing up – he was a human just like you and I are. He wasn't born perfect - he became perfect; just as we are commanded to become.

        I love my Savior more than anything else in this world. His hand continues to guide my life. I put full faith in Him and know that He has my best interest in mind through everything I go through. I’ve learned that through challenges, I only become stronger. I know that we will all be saved by His wondrous mercy and love. I know that He has put living Prophets on this earth to be His spokesperson – to help us and aide us in our journey back to Him. I know that it is through Christ, our Lord, that we will return to live with our Heavenly Father once again – and I will be doing everything possible to make that happen for the rest of my mortal life.