lesson 5

My favorite and the most beautiful lesson I learned...

Eli taught me that the feelings of love we have for someone is its own reward.

 I had a powerful realization that day after Eli passed away. I realized that the love I had for him was its own reward. I think we very often times love or "show love" to people, hoping we will get a reciprocal love from them. We think that the love they give to us will be the reward for loving them. This isn't true.

I had an experience where I felt God very specifically directing me to pray that I would receive Eli with all the love I had in my heart. I had worried about this a bit because I feared my time with him would be too short to have that love fully matured and realized. God had literally told me exactly how to ask for this and was able to give it to me because I had asked. 

I want to share some of the feelings I have for Eli. No words could ever adequately communicate the feelings of my heart, but hopefully the spirit will touch you so you can understand a little bit of what I felt.

I have never loved anyone the way I loved Eli. I loved him so completely and so fully so immediately. It was so natural for me to do so. It was consuming and the most beautiful thing I have ever felt. It matured right away... Not like my other kids...it's still maturing w them. When I met him and watched him struggle for his life, all the things I have sacrificed to give him life became manifest. It  was a cumulative effect of the months I had carried him. I was grateful that my pregnancy was so hard and that my labor was so hard. It allowed God to be able to let me feel love as strong as my pain had been.  The love I had always felt for him could now  be given to him in the flesh. We really can't experience great joy and love without great sorrow and pain. I've never felt love like that. I know that it was gift from God.

I believe that's how God loves us. So completely...so fully...all encompassing. No selfishness and no strings attached. Just purely. He does only those things that are for our own good. Only those things that will bring us happiness. He loves me enough to give me the best chance to obtain eternal life. He loves us more than I even love Eli, and I can't comprehend that. He loved us enough to sacrifice his own Son. I love Eli. I've never loved anyone enough to sacrifice Eli in their behalf. Especially for someone who might never accept him. I feel Eli was too precious and too pure for such a fate. Can you imagine how Heavenly Father felt as he gave his perfect and pure Son for our sake? For all of the sinners....which is all of us... It opened my eyes.

Now that I don't have Eli in my arms the pain is immense, but I wouldn't trade those moments of love I had with him for a lesser pain or sorrow. That kind of love is worth any price. And someday I will have all the time I want to love him in the flesh. 

Eli taught me that the feelings of love we have for someone is its own reward.