When was the closest you've felt to Heavenly Father?

When I was 21 I had come home from a hospital visit and while I had been there, a cousin of mine had brought a journal for people who visited me to write in. Late one night, I decided to pull out that journal and read what people had wrote. I remember feeling so loved and touched by what my visitors had written not only about me, but of the Spirit they had felt when they'd come into my hospital room. Their words of encouragement and faith and love uplifted me in a way that I cannot describe. I'd grown up with these people, but I had no idea I'd meant that much to them. Being on the younger end of a large group of cousins, I'd always looked up to them and felt of myself as sort of an afterthought compared to them. As I sat there basking in these feelings of love and support, a thought crossed my mind.

If this is how much I am loved by my family and friends, how much does Heavenly Father love me?

Within an instant of that thought flowing into my mind, I was overwhelmed with a sweet, warm embrace of pure love. Pure love. It was a love so deep and personal, I had never experienced anything like it before. And I knew what I felt was merely a glimpse of what that pure, unconditional love is, and where it comes from. It was a glimpse of the Divine.

An experience like this could easily be brushed off to be something insignificant. But I could not deny the significance this had on me. On what I believed, and what I knew to be true. That there is a God. That He loves us more than we can comprehend. That there is more to our lives than we can understand.

I wish I could share with everyone that feeling that I'd had - the comfort and peace and unconditional love. I believe it would change the world.

And I believe it does.

Every day.

If we are open enough to listen and receive it.