known

Janelle is in Brazil. that is SO FAR AWAY FROM ME. i could get to Rexburg, Idaho to my other best girlfriends in 16 hours if i drive like a maniac and only stop when i need gas. I have no idea how long it would take me to get to porte alegre. i don't even know if that's how you spell it, or how to get a visa. I can email her once a week, and i know she'll answer, but it's so so different from having her at the end of a phone line if i need her. 

and just now i was feeling pretty crumby about that. 

so i wrote her an email to read on monday.

and it helped a whole heap.

She's been encouraging everyone in her emails to read our scriptures more regularly. I've really been trying. aside from her specific encouragement, it's a goal of mine to read my scriptures often if not everyday. so i was telling her about some of my experiences lately that came from reading. and now i can't stop thinking about how much the New Testament has changed me. 

I love it so much. 

so so so much. 

I took a New Testament class in school last semester and it was WONDERFUL. honestly, i just felt like...i don't even know if i can describe it. I felt like the whole age, like the very meridian of time, was opening up and filling the room and i was walking around in it. like a dream. like the walls were moving paintings of Christ that i'd seen and heard and read my whole life, but never understood. never loved. not like this. I couldn't get enough of it. i drank it. it filled me from head to toes and fingertips, and all i wanted was more. more. more. The Miracles Jesus Christ performed had never been so tangible, or His Atonement so real, in my whole life. and i felt like i KNEW Him! I felt like He was my actual friend and i was His and that I'd really known Him my whole life. I was right there with Peter and Philip and John and Andrew. I was there, and i felt Him, and i knew Him. and 

He.

 knew.

 me. 

it was the most incredible thing I've ever experienced. 

i'll never forget it.

And tonight, writing this right now, I've felt an answer to a prayer i didn't even consciously make. just a desire in my heart. to be heard. to be loved. to be known. 

to feel what i experienced in that class.

the answer was this:

Your Father in Heaven hears you. always. whenever you need Him. 

and the strength of your Savior, Jesus Christ, is there whenever you need it. 

They love you and know you. 

and you can feel that whenever you want it.

that's true. 

I am heard and loved and known. 

I can feel it.