"Heavenly Father, Are You Really There...?"

The words of a children's hymn often stick with my heart.  "Heavenly Father, are you really there?  And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?"  ("A Child's Prayer").  I have felt His love often.  In the dark when I was afraid as a child, in my heart as I prayed for comfort during a time of trial, or in the middle of the day when I see hundreds of other people and wonder if I really matter to him.  It comes as a quiet and gentle reassurance, He is there.  He does answer our prayers.  Just as a young boy, Joseph Smith, prayed to find God, we too can.  We are His children and "everyone that asks, receives; everyone that seeks, finds, (3 Nephi 14:7-8), that is His promise.

"We are the children of God"

Worth of a Soul

Someone close to me expressed something that she fears, as she is changing her life and trying to come closer to the Savior.  As my companion and I shared with her our desire for her to come to understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ more fully, I found myself pondering upon my life and how change had brought up some of my worst fears.  As we listened closer, I have come to feel that this fear was more internal; the question of self worth. 

There is a worry that comes to us when we change our lives, when we come to wonder if we must truly move past the places where we once felt most comfortable.  Will we be good enough for the new group of people that we will associate with, or will these new set of values that we will live really make me free?  I have pondered about this for a few days and a certain hymn comes to mind, which touched my heart and awakened my spirit to a sense of healing that Christ offers to us all, as we change and become something new.

"Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish;
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.

Here bring your wounded hearts; here tell your anguish.
Earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal."

"Come Ye Disconsolate"

There are fears, doubts and pains that trouble our souls, but as we go though these experiences a feeling of hope and joy may flood our souls as we read the words of prophets of old, Romans 8:16-17.  We are all God's children, and he loves each of us.  Doctrine and Covenants 18:10, 13.  We are of worth to Him.