A Courageous and Painful Sacrifice

I just checked my notes from Elder W. Craig Zwick's talk, and was reminded that I had had a much better insight than "you should ask for other people's opinions," and now that I've been reminded of that insight, I'd like to share it.

At the start of Elder Zwick's talk, he related an experience he had had while driving a big rig down a mountain road. Suddenly, the truck's engine started emitting a great deal of smoke, and Elder Zwick worked frantically to safely stop the truck. His wife, thinking that the truck's engine was on fire and likely to explode, held their infant son closely and jumped out of the truck. She risked her life and suffered personal injury, but fortunately both she and her child survived the incident. When she was later asked "What in the world were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous that was? You could have been killed,” her response showed what her motivations were. “I was just trying to save our son.”

I would relate this mother's courageous and painful sacrifice, as well as the pure love that motivated it, to that of the Savior, who courageously suffered great pain and even death to save us. Both acts were very heroic, and both were inspired by the deepest level of love any human being can feel.

We are rarely called upon to do anything as perilous and painful as that, but God frequently asks us to make sacrifices of a different nature - sacrifices that, while not life-threatening, can still be painful in their own ways. Will we have the courage to make the sacrifices God asks us to make? We can, if we have the proper motivation.

We can keep the commandments and abandon sin out of a love for God and a desire to please Him. We can forsake our sins out of a love for Jesus and a desire to not add any more suffering to the sacrifice He had to make for us. If nothing else, we can keep the commandments out of a love for ourselves and a desire to land our souls in heaven rather than hell. With a sufficient amount of love motivating our actions, we can have the courage to do whatever God asks us to do, however painful it may be.