The Gifts

Agency was our First Great Gift. What a bittersweet gift for our Heavenly Father to give. He loved us enough to let us choose his way, but...oh, how we've gone astray, each one of us. It must have hurt-- being hurt. Before we came to earth we said we would. We said we'd come back to Him. Many haven't. Many won't.
The Atonement was our Greatest Gift. What a sacrifice-- the Father sending his son to earth. Perhaps he watched his son step along the clouds of glory leaving footsteps of power and perfection. Once again, bittersweet. So very happy that we would all be saved. But with so much sorrow to know how perfectly he (His son) would suffer. How long? How agonizing? For us-- incomprehensible. But he knew about the blood from every pore. he knew about the betrayal and the whip and the cross. The thorns and the spit...and the death.
But that's just it. He knew. He counted his will as naught and said thy will o Lord be done. Then resurrected, the work was done. It will last forever and for all.
I have hope because of my faith. He will come. I will live. We will all live.