Meditations on a crocheted cloth

     Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. (Doctrine and Covenants 93:29) For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth.... And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men, and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them..(Moses3:5) Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee..(Jeremiah 1:5) Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. (Psalms 82:6,7) Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.(Ecclesiastes 12:7) Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. (Acts 17:29)
     I have been thinking about our relationship to our Father in Heaven and to each other as humans on the planet Earth. In the temple today I pondered as I looked at the crocheted cover on the altar where Russ and I were performing sealings for dead ancestors- marriages and sealings of children to parents. I have spent countless hours searching out my kindred dead and have reached a point where it's rare that anyone I find is close enough to me that I really know anything about them. Yet, I know I am related to everyone who has ever lived and is living now. The scriptures explain that we are all children of God. We are all offspring of Adam and Eve, and even closer, we all descend from Noah (after the floodwaters abated and all other people were destroyed). God chose not to just send ALL of His children to Earth at the same time. We arrived one by one, born of an earthly mother and father. Originally, we were all His children but our bodies of flesh and blood were developed inside a human womb. The crocheted temple cloth was an intricate design, all carefully stitched from one single thread. The stitches form various parts of the design but are ALL connected!
     I also thought about "dropped stitches". There are those who have been born on the Earth that ultimately will choose not to return to God. They will choose Satan's principles. That is so sad but it's an essential part of the opportunity God has given all of His children to choose for themselves. But there will never be "holes" in God's family. There may be a dropped stitch, but we are still all connected. We are not alone nor can we make decisions in our lives that have no impact on anyone else. However, eventually there will be no more tears, no sorrow. God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son that whoso believeth in Him shall not die but have everlasting life. We may not be able to see the entire design on the cloth from where we are right now, but we are all connected, all loved, and will some day be all together---- forever.