The Gift of Charity

When President Eyring would tell his mother that something was hard, she would say to him: “Oh, Hal, of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. Life is a test.” He commented, “She could say that calmly, even with a smile, because she knew two things. Regardless of the struggle, what would matter most would be to arrive at home to be with her Heavenly Father. And she knew she could do it through faith in her Savior.” He realized as he considered how she overcame her many struggles in life that charity is what carried her through. He commented, “Looking back, I now see how that gift of charity—the pure love of Christ—strengthened, guided, sustained, and changed my mother in the struggle on her way home.” It was her love and the love of the Savior that sustained her, and paying tribute to his mother President Eyring said, “I have been blessed as well by my mother’s legacy.” Mormon appears to have similarly found his way through the great challenges of his life—living among a people who totally rejected God—through the gift of love. He declared, “I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear. And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love” (Moroni 8:16-17). It is love that can see us through the challenges of life, whatever they may be, and bring us back to our heavenly home.

After quoting Mormon’s famous words about charity, President Eyring continued by relating them to his wife as well: “At the risk of invading her privacy, I will add a brief report of the encouragement of my wife. I do so carefully. She is a private person who neither seeks nor appreciates praise. We have been married for 60 years. It is because of that experience that I now understand the meaning of these scriptural words: faith, hope, meekness, enduring, seeking not our own, rejoicing in the truth, not thinking evil, and above all, charity. On the basis of that experience, I can bear testimony that apparently ordinary human beings can take all of those wonderful ideals into their daily lives as they rise through the buffetings of life.” Again he suggested that it is love that has seen his wife through her trials and helped her rise above them on her path home to the Father. His encouragement was for each of us to seek more earnestly after the gift of charity, for no matter what trials we have faced and struggled with in mortality, if we are “found possessed of [charity] at the last day, it shall be well with [us].” If like his mother and his wife we have developed charity in this life, “when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure” (Moroni 7:47-48). Charity will lead us home to Him.  

            I really like the thoughts about love from the spiritual leader Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov. Speaking to a woman who doubted her faith, he suggested how she could become convinced of the reality of God and immortality: “By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably. In as far as you advance in love you will grow surer of the reality of God and of the immortality of your soul. If you attain to perfect self-forgetfulness in the love of your neighbor, then you will believe without doubt, and no doubt can possibly enter your soul. This has been tried. This is certain.” As we truly love, we can come to know that God exists because we become more like Him and understand better who He is. As Victor Hugo put it, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” True Christlike love, the kind described by Mormon as charity and lived perfectly by the Savior, will take away our doubts about God and lead us back to Him and our own eternal life.