You Matter to Him

On this beautiful Sunday, I wanted to take a moment and share with you all an experience I recently had. 
On one of my shifts this past week I had to declare a patient dead. 
I'd never done this before, nor did I feel too prepared to do so.
Really? You need me to do this? Why don't we call someone else? 
But as I studied this patient's lifeless body, closely watching for any final breaths, listening for any distant heart beats, and watching for any sign of life, something became very clear to me: My own nothingness. 
I looked where this lifeless body lied, which had only moments ago been breathing the breath of life, and when all bodily functions ceased, I took everything in for what it was: there is no one left in this room but me. 
One day I will be just as this women--gone from this life and leave my body to remain. What will matter then? 
What will matter was who I became; how I allowed every single life's experience to affect me--both for the good and the bad--and how I enriched or failed to enrich those around me. 
While I had this experience, the words of Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf came into my mind: 
"You could pile up the accumulated currency of the entire world and it could not buy a loaf of bread in the economy of heaven."
Obviously, this was a lesson that someone had in mind for me to learn personally--and, ouch, it stung. 
But in that feeling of nothingness, Elder Uchtdorf further explained, "God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him." 
My lesson was directed at remembering that many of the things I worry about, the things that I think define me and whether I have succeeded in this life or not, really don't. 
I plan on leaving this life, as I hope this patient did, having loved the Lord and my family with a perfect love and having left little room for worry of things that have no consequence and will leave me when I leave my body. 
I know that we matter to our Heavenly Father--that He knows us personally by name and knows our struggles and joys and wants us to be happy. I also know that He knew this patient  that I watched pass and that she mattered a great deal to Him. 
I definitely recommend reading this truly inspirational message! It was given at this last October General Conference, and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to read it again. 

xoxo