Merry and Bright

With a range of thoughts and feelings swirling around my mind and heart, I felt a need to express a thought in print tonight. I’m not even sure why I feel what I feel right now, it will suffice to say that music has been a catalyst. I’m not sure exactly who I’m writing to– perhaps myself to a degree, and to whomever else this might resonate with.

Winter has in recent years been a fairly introspective time of year for me, a time during which I typically withdraw. Outside it is dark, cold, peaceful, beautiful in a wintery way.

As I drove home this evening experiencing a range of thoughts and emotions that come with such introspection, I thought for a moment how interesting it felt to be me. I remarked that no one else could know how it felt to be me, just as I could never fully know how it felt to be anyone else. I couldn’t even find words to describe different emotions I felt– feelings are like a language of their own and we simply try to describe them with words. What I felt was not necessarily happiness or sadness, but wonder and depth. The thought that followed was that, actually, someone else DOES know what it feels like to be me (or any one else for that matter), and that person is God. More specifically, Christ– He doesn’t just know who you are by name and face.

He knows very personally, to the minutest detail, who each of us is inside and out, because of the divine Atonement which He has carried out. Because of that experience, He knows what effect all our experiences have on us, He knows the thoughts and feelings we go through, He knows our pains and our joys and because of this, He knows how to help us– help us not only recover from hardship but also to become our best.

This is marvelous. An idea hit me that, before tonight, hadn’t quite had the impact on me that it seems to have now. That is that each of us is truly unique. Each of us is a complex individual with different thoughts, feelings, experiences, personality traits, weaknesses, strengths, talents, and so on. There literally is no one else just like you. Sure there may be people with some common or similar threads in their makeup that may understand you a bit better than others, but no one is exactly like you, and yet Christ knows every fiber that comprises you.

You don’t need to do anything to be unique. You don’t have to try. You simply are unique, you were before you were even thought to compare yourself to others.

God our Father in Heaven also knows us this way– He created us each individually, He gave us everything we have. Who could possibly know us better? And because of how well these individuals know us, they are able to help us the most. They allow us to make mistakes, to fall, and they are there to help us up in order that we might learn if we’ll but reach out and take hold of the hand that is being offered to us.

Because each person is a unique individual, each person can fulfill a unique purpose here on earth, or fulfill a purpose in a unique way. God knows exactly how you can do the most good, how you can grow the most, how you can live YOUR greatest life possible. There is not one mold or pattern that God wants to try to fit us into because we are all different. There are universal laws that govern happiness and progression and Christ has shown us that path and the necessary steps. But the details of the relationships we’ll each have in mortality, the people we have opportunity to love and serve and HOW we love and serve them will be unique to each of us, and if we’re willing, God will show us just that– that there is not only a grand plan of happiness, but that there is also an individually tailored plan of happiness for each person on earth, one based on the great plan of happiness but fleshed out in much finer detail for each of us… because no two of us are the same.

It is wonderful. Not only that no one else is like you, but that God has taken that into account, knows you in detail, and has prepared a way for you to be happy based on that unique combination of traits that is you. Don’t try to be anyone else. Learn from everything and everyone that you can, grow, develop, become something greater, but don’t pretend or wish you were someone else. Don’t be jealous of what others have or are, you weren’t sent here to compete with others, and your path to fulfill your potential is different than theirs. You won’t be happy and you won’t succeed if you’re not true to who you are.

You don’t even have to figure this life out on your own, you’d be foolish to try. God is the one person you can go to in order to find out in more detail what it is you have to give, how you can give the most, how you can serve the most, how you can love the most, help others best to be happy and thereby be happiest yourself. Remember it’s the world that would seek to stereotype us and categorize us and classify us into broad groups, to tell us we’re not unique. This is a great reason why we can’t judge others– we simply don’t have the information necessary to do so, nor can we in this life.

How grateful I am for a Father in Heaven and a Savior that love us so, and whose purpose is solely for our individual and collective happiness. How grateful I am that we are all unique individuals with unique roles and paths to follow in this life– it gives variety to the world, creates more opportunities for relationships and service, and makes greater joy possible. May we recognize God the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, for who they are– our loving friends with arms always outstretched to help us. May we also take the Christmas spirit– or the spirit of Christ– with us throughout our lives and seek to be more like them– to always give, to always serve, and to always love those around us.

Merry Christmas!