Happy Mother´s Day to all the lovely moms out there!!! (Especially to my mom, who is the best.)
This week I´m going to share something I studied this week that I liked a lot. It´s out of the Teachings of Presidents of the Church David O. Mckay. In one of the chapters he tells this story:
``There is an old story... which told of the experience of a great artist who was engaged to paint a mural for the cathedral in a Sicilian town. The subject was the life of Christ. For many years the artist labored diligently, and finally the painting was finished except for the two most important figures, the Christ Child and Judas Iscariot. He searched far and wide for models for those two figures.
One day while walkng in an old part of the city he came upon some children playing in the street. Among them was a twelve-year-old boy whose face stirred the painter´s heart. It was the face of an angel - a very dirty one, perhaps, but the face he needed.
The artist took the child home with him, and day after day the boy sat patiently until the face of the Christ Child was finished.
But the painted failed to find a model for Judas. For years, haunted by the fear that his masterpiece would remain unfinished, he continued his search.
One afternood, in a tavern, the painter saw a gaunt and tattered figure stagger across the threshold and fall to the floor, begging for a glass of wine. The painted lifted him up and looked into a face that startled him. It seemed to bear the marks of every sin of mankind.
´Come with me,` the painter said, ´I will give you wine, food, and clothing.´
Here at last was his model for Judas. For many days and parts of many nights the painter worked feverishly to complete his masterpiece.
As the work went on, a change came over the model. A strange tension replaced the stuporous languor, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed with horror on the painted likeness of himself. One day, perceiving his subject´s agitation, the painter paused in his work, saying ´My son, I´d like to help you. What troubles you so?´
The model sobbed and burried his face in his hands. After a long moment he lifted pleading eyes to the old painter´s face.
`Do you not then remember me? Years ago I was your model for the Christ Child!``
President Mckay then goes on to explain that ``man has a natural body and a spiritual body`` He talks about the importance to nuture our spiritual body and not our natural one. At the end of the chapter he goes on to state, ``The true end of life is not mere existence, not pleasure, not fame, not weath. The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God´s inspiration.
I am so very grateful to my mother for teaching me about God and to always seek His guidance and counsel so that He can make more of me than I ever could alone. Abraham Lincoln said it perfectly exactly how I feel about my mom,
``All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.``
Love you all!!!
Have a great week!
-Sis Lloyd
