God's Love Through Willing Hands
By Lauren Madsen
“Come on, we need to go!” I yelled to my daughter as I loaded the last of the neighbor gifts into the wagon. I reached for the doorknob and had the thought, grab the extra Peppermint Joe Joe’s and give them to the family you minister to. Dropping off goodies was not the only thing we had scheduled for that December day, but I've learned not to second guess my thoughts so I quickly tied up the cookies with the Christmas dish towels I had planned to give and we were on our way.
A few days went by and I received this text: “I have to tell you thank you for the goodies. My husband loves those cookies at Christmas and when I went to the store to get some they were all out. He was so happy you brought some!” I tilted my head up to the sky, as I so often do, and whispered, "Thank you for telling me to do that." I happily texted back: "I'm so glad you told me that! I grabbed an extra box when I went to Trader Joe's not knowing then who I would give it to. Had the thought to give them to you guys. I love how Heavenly Father works!"
Each day we have the chance to feel God's love for His children. What a wonderful side effect blessing that comes as a result of reaching out to others. We open our hearts and minds to promptings and, if we follow them, we get to see His love in action through us.
We may be tempted to second-guess those little nudges. We may be tempted to think the impact of our offerings is small. But it becomes crucial to understand that those thoughts come from the adversary, who doesn't want us responding to spiritual promptings or blessing those around us.
Elder Ronald A. Rasband's talk called Let The Holy Spirit Guide has been so helpful to me as I've tried to be a better instrument in God's hands. He taught: “The Lord knows the needs of all His children—and He knows who is prepared to help. If we let the Lord know in our morning prayers that we are ready, He will call on us to respond. If we respond, He will call on us time and time again and we will find ourselves on what President Monson calls ‘the Lord’s errand.’”
If we want to feel God's love in our lives, we can let Him know our hearts are open and our hands are willing. He will use us, in ways both big and small, to help His children know they are seen and loved by Him. When He uses us, we will feel His deep love for us as well.