Come Unto Christ

I have thought a lot about this scripture on the final page of The Book of Mormon.

Moroni 10:32
Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

Isn't that our goal? To become like He is, to be perfect like He is. And to realize that our quest to become like Him is only possible because of His atoning sacrifice. Because of the Atonement we can overcome sin and imperfections and be strengthened to endure the challenges of mortality. How grateful I am for this indescribable gift!

I thought about this quest to Come Unto Christ as I listened to our Primary children sing in Sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago.  They sang this verse from "The Family is of God".

A mother’s purpose is to care, prepare,
To nurture and to strengthen all her children.
She teaches children to obey, to pray,
To love and serve in the fam’ly.

I love the whole song, but for some reason this verse about mothers really stood out to me. I thought again of coming unto Christ, and how we must bring ourselves unto Christ, but also we have a great effect on others, to help them in their journey to Christ And as a mother I have a profound influence on my children. I must never forget that.

Then I thought about a painting that I have seen in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. It was attended this past spring when the baptistry was renovated. The painting depicts a street in Jerusalem during Biblical times. In the corner, there are women sitting together with buildings in the background, and there is a small grouping of men watching the three main people in the painting. And the focus of the painting is a mother, her daughter and Jesus Christ. The girl is walking with a crutch. The mother has her arm around her daughter, and they are both intently looking at the Savior, who is standing near them with his arms outstretched. There is no way of knowing what this mother has gone through to bring her daughter to see and be healed by the Savior, but you can tell it is important to her. The young girl has a look of joy and hope on her face.

This painting will forever remind me that I need to do all in my power to help my children come unto Christ that they may be perfected in Him.