In a Stake Women's Conference I attended, Jennifer Gardiner told a story of a woman named Rosa who was dying of cancer. Jennifer's father, a member of the Seventy, came to visit and asked if there was anyone he could bless. She took him to Rosa and as he blessed her Jennifer waited to hear the words "You will be healed". Those words never came. But in the blessing he promised Rosa that she would have a sure knowledge that she was a daughter of God. After the blessing, as the visitors began to converse, Rosa laid back on her pillow and closed her eyes. She later asked if someone would bring her some pictures of Christ. She picked one of the pictures and said "Yes, this one. This is the one I want. This is what He looks like." She was asked how she knew this. She said it was because she had seen Him. In a vision she was able to see Him clearly and what He looked like. In the vision, He was talking to a little child. He was so focused on the child that Rosa could not break His attention. She realized then that the child He was talking to was her.
Somehow I had always envisioned Christ paying attention to us the way I pay attention to my children, which is to be honest, more like a juggling act. I can only focus on one at a time. I have to try and juggle around which child receives my time and attention, and usually who ever has the more urgent need gets the more immediate attention. After hearing this story I thought, "Is it possible that Christ is giving me His full attention? Could He be so close and so intensely concentrated on me and my well being?" This is something I had never considered before. I had assumed that when my problems weren't quite so urgent, He sort of juggled me around and focused on someone else who needed His help more, while still trying to "keep an eye on me". I never thought that He could be that vested or interested in me, or that He could have the time or ability to be. But I think He is. As I am writing this, it feels like He is. He is watching over me, teaching me, blessing me, chastising me, forgiving me and strengthening me. He is with me and His influence is through out me all of the time. I think my mortal mind and perception of time had always stifled this concept. I don't understand how He can watch over me that intently, but I know His works are great and that He can do all things.
With this new perspective it makes it easier for me to turn to Him, to talk to Him and to try and hear what it is He's so focused on trying to say to me. And to do so without worrying that I'm intruding on someone else's time who needs Him more. It was so arrogant of me to think that I don't continually need His help just as much as everyone else. If I am at a cooling point, and my trials don't seem to be as severe as before, then it is a good time for me to be growing by gaining understanding and knowledge, as well as being His hands by helping those around me who are suffering.
CS. Lewis put it this way: “[God] has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man [or woman] in the world.”
