Pattern of Love
I didn’t question Timmy, age nine, or his seven year old brother Billy about the brown wrapping paper they passed back and forth between them as we visited each store.
Every year at Christmas time, our Service Club takes the children from poor families in our town on a personally conducted shopping tour. I was assigned Timmy and Billy, whose father was out of work. After giving them the allotted four dollars each, be began our trip. At different stores I made suggestions, but always their answer was a solemn shake of the head, no. Finally I asked, “Where would you suggest we look?”
“Could we go to a shoe store, sir?’ answered Timmy. “We’d like a pair of shoes for our Daddy so he can go to work.”
In the shoe store the clerk asked what the boys wanted. Out came the brown paper. “We want a pair of work shoes to fit this foot,” they said.
Billy explained that is was a pattern of their Daddy’s foot. They had drawn it while he was asleep in a chair.
The clerk held the paper against a measuring stick, then walked away. Soon he came with an open box. “Will these do?’ he asked.
Timmy and Billy handled the shoes with great eagerness. “How much do they cost?” asked Billy.
Then Timmy saw the price on the box. “They’re $16.95,” he said in dismay. “We only have eight dollars.”
I looked at the clerk and he cleared his throat. “That’s the regular price,” he said, “but they’re on sale for $3.98, today only.”
Then with shoes happily in hand the boys bought gifts for their mother and two little sisters. Not once did they think of themselves.
The day after Christmas the boys’ father stopped me on the street. The new shoes were on his feet, gratitude was in his eyes. “I just thank Jesus for people who care,” he said.
“And I thank Jesus for your two sons,” I replied. “They taught me more about Christmas in one evening than I had learned in a lifetime.” by Jack Smith
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How love, the pattern of love, can and will change the world. Elder Bednar a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, talks about patterns, a lot. Patterns of REVELATION, patterns of Light pt. 1, Light pt. 2, Light pt. 3, and more. So it made me think, 1) he should make more videos and this time about the Pattern of LOVE, and 2) I really need to study this out myself and learn to practice following the patterns of love taught to us by our Savior.
Our lesson this past Sunday in Young Women's, in our Laurel's class, I was blessed to teach the lesson about Building Up the Lord's Kingdom and how we can participate in hastening the Lords work. It was a very wonderful lesson that surrounded the talk by Carole M. Stephens called We Have Great Reason to Rejoice. She tells several touching stories in there about loving and serving others and how by doing such we are being covenant keepers and therefore we are hastening the work of the Lord. This lesson now keeps coming to my mind and how it relates to the Pattern of LOVE. Love lived as a pattern can change everything.
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