How I Came to Know of Christ's Love

This is a very personal experience which I have only shared with a very few people but think I now need to share with all of you.

Volcan y Nevado de Colima

While living in Colima, Mexico, in the 1970s I suddenly became very ill, and was in the hospital for several days in and out of myself, hallucinating due to high fever. The doctors couldn't figure out what was the problem and since I was acting so crazy with the hallucinations they accused me of being a drug user (which of course I wasn't). Well, my condition began to deteriorate and they took me by ambulance to Guadalajara (a 4 hour ride) and when I got there it was found that I had a terrible kidney infection, that a stone had passed from the kidney into the ureter and due to its size and form it had torn my ureter spilling infection into the abdomen and I had toxemia and my entire body was infected. My mother, who just happened to be visiting me in Colima at the time and rode with me in the ambulance, was told if I had arrived another 24 hours later I would not have made it. I needed an operation but was too ill to survive one. The doctors felt that they had to get the infection under control first.

So for several days I was given intravenous antibiotics but my condition continued to deteriorate and there were days I was in a state of just hallucinating. I could go into the details of those hallucinations but there were many strange things I saw and experienced and did, some I have been told about but don't even remember (one especially strange one I remember clearly and will have to write about later!). I was in the hospital a total of 3 1/2 weeks and about 2 weeks of that time were lost to me due to nothing but hallucinations.

Nothing could bring down the fever and I actually remember being packed in ice and my family was told I probably would have brain damage if I survived because the fever had spiked to 107! Duh, I guess that's why I am the way I am! Good excuse anyway, needs use it more often!

On one of my unusual "sane" days, the seminary teacher for one of the Guadalajara stakes came to visit me and since he was a man I greatly respected I asked him for a blessing. He says that when he laid his hands on my head I was so hot I just radiated a strong heat from the top of my head into his hands, but that as he blessed me he could feel the heat leave my body. I remember feeling a sensation as if a blanket was being pulled from the top of my head down to my toes and could feel like a cool breeze touching my entire body. But at the same time I received a very very strong witness that Christ was in the room. I looked around, actually expecting without a doubt to see him (that's how strong the feeling was and at this time I WASN'T hallucinating) and could see he was not there, but I felt a very strong comforting presence that testified to me that Christ loved me beyond anything I could imagine and that he really did exist (I'd had doubts about that)!

Statue of Christ at the Mesa Temple Visitors Center I then was told (not by any voice just a very strong feeling) that the presence I was feeling was the Holy Ghost and that the testimony I received from him was the same as if Christ himself would have appeared to me. I felt an intensely strong overwhelming feeling of love for ALL people, it was an extremely strong emotion of love, very overwhelming, and I realized that this was only a little taste of the love that God had for everyone. I was in absolutely awe at this love that was so very intense. This love I felt was so strong that tears sprung from my eyes and I felt an urgent need to jump out of bed and hug everyone, that I wanted to run into the hallway and visit all the patients and tell them how much God loved them. Of course, I couldn't do that but the only way I can begin to describe it is almost as if my heart wanted to burst and could not contain all the love I had inside! I wanted to share my love with all my family, friends, and everyone who I saw. I felt I couldn't wait to leave the hospital and return to Colima to tell all my fellow church members about this love that was so great. To this day, I cannot even try to put into words the very strong feeling that I felt, it was and is to this day indescribable! Anyway, after that blessing I began to improve and for the first time my fever was gone and they were able to operate, and within a week I was home. The doctor told me that my kidney just felt apart in his hands it was so infected and if they wouldn't have operated when they did I might have not made it. He thought of removing it but felt he should clean it up the best he could and leave it in but doubted it would ever function (but it is!) Anyway I couldn't wait to leave the hospital, they wanted to keep me there longer but I begged to go home as I couldn't wait to share my love! I felt I needed to get out of there and start sharing! I remember going home to my family and just hugging everyone and feeling such love that I'd never felt before, and then going to our little branch in Colima and the overwhelming feeling of love I felt for everyone. I didn't share with them my experience at that time because it was just so impossible to put into words. I just never wanted this wonderful feeling to go away! I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to always have this feeling with me. But it is strange to explain but it almost felt that it was so intense I just could not continue to have it with me constantly, like it was too strong to contain but at the same time it was the most wonderful of feelings!

Unfortunately, with time and as the daily trials and "life" brought me down to reality again, the feeling I felt has subsided but I have never forgotten this experience and the testimony I received of God's great love for all of us! To this day there are many moments when this love swells up inside of me, especially when I pass one of our Heavenly Father's lost souls on the street somewhere (as I saw recently in Oaxaca- so many poor people begging on the street). This is when I feel this overwhelming desire to take them in my arms and let them know of God's love for them and then these tears will swell up in my eyes (much to my embarrassment!). I have passed them as my husband drags me along, but then I've had to pull myself away from him to go back and help them, at times crossing the street or going back several blocks (to my husband's chagrin) to give them a few coins all the while containing my wanting to hug them tight! Then there are times when I am having a special experience with family or friends, or sharing someone's pain, or I am in church singing the sacrament hymn about the Savior's love or I see something especially beautiful in nature or hear a very endearing piece of music or read something touching and for a fleeting moment this intense feeling of love overwhelms me and I "remember" and the tears will come.

So now friends and relatives perhaps you can understand why I cry so much! It is really embarrassing at times! But anyway, this is the reason for so many tears, as once in a while I still have the privilege of having this great love overwhelm me and what a great privilege it is and what a comfort to have this special knowledge of Christ's love for us.

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Pamela Peterson served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Columbia for two years with her husband, Clyde Peterson. She does her best to help and serve others. She loves life, wishes for more time to read, loves meeting and talking to people, dancing, and serves all who come into her life. She has an overwhelmingly and constant desire to help and serve others and fill their lives with love and compasion. She speeks only for herself.