I Know That My Savior Loves Me

One of the happy things about having been the primary chorister for so long is that often when the present chorister goes out of town she asks me to fill in for her. Since today is the first Sunday of a new year I also got to teach a new song; one that has never been used before in primary.

I wasn't having a great Sunday. The combination of fasting and afternoon church is never a happy one in my body. During sacrament meeting I felt more tired and hungry than anything else. But I was really excited to teach this song to the children. It has a pretty melody, and lovely words.

One of the lines of the song says:

I did not touch him or sit on his knee,
yet Jesus is real to me.

I shared a story about one of my younger brothers. When he was little he was convinced that Jesus was about as real as He-Man, and positive that He-Man was much more powerful than either God or Jesus. I realized then that sometimes Jesus is more abstract than a cartoon character, and it's hard for little kids to understand that Jesus lived as a real person on the earth. I wanted to be sure that the kids understood that Jesus is not real like a cartoon is real—but that he was and is a real person.

We learned sign language for the chorus, and then "sang" through using only the signs several times before I started teaching them the melody. By this time it really should have been the end of singing time, but fortunately the primary president told me to keep going. Pretty soon their sweet voices were all singing the words of the chorus while they signed:

I know he lives,
I will follow faithfully.
My heart I give to him,
I know that my Savior loves me.

I had goosebumps.

When we finished singing, I told them that I hoped that every time they sing this song they will be able to remember that Jesus is real. I bore them my testimony that Jesus loves each of them just as much as he loved those children long ago. It was one of those moments that reminded me again of the paradox of testimonies; that it is often in the sharing of a testimony that it grows. I told them that I knew if Jesus was here with us today he would be so excited to see each one of them, and to hug each of them just as he hugged those children long ago.

In that moment I felt in my heart a powerful certainly of Jesus' love for each of those children. A personal, individual love, not just a generic institutional love. And that was a good thing for me to feel today...