a constant companion

On Sunday, a woman spoke of her conversion and mentioned how, when she was investigating, she went at first to LDS activities because she liked how she felt there - a feeling she didn't feel anywhere else.

That made me think about the feelings the Spirit brings. I am so familiar with the feelings of peace, love, joy, and utter happiness that the idea of it being new and unattainable elsewhere for her was so foreign to me. The idea of being without that constant companion makes my soul shutter. I can't imagine the darkness. I can't imagine the lonliness of it. I can't imagine the feelings of being lost that must be in the heart of a person who has never know the spirit.

Or worse, the feeling of emptiness in the heart of a person who has once known it, but lost it. If you've never known it, then you don't really know what you are missing. But, to have tasted of its goodness and then left it - that must truely be dark.

I think of people I know in my life that were once members - active and they MUST have felt the stirrings of the Spirit in their hearts and souls. But, now they are inactive. They truely must not have understood. How else could a person leave and turn from that God who sends His Spirit into our hearts so readily, so fully?

I am so grateful for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost in my life. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father, who shows me the way, and helps me along that path back to Him. I wish for everyone to receive that. My deepest Christmas wish - really all throughout the year, is for everyone, everywhere to have that Spirit dwell in their hearts and lives and guides them back home to our Father in Heaven.