Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. Since I wasn’t able to spend time with my own sweet mother that day, I went to the house of my sister—who too is a mother—to visit with her and her family. There came a point during my stay when I was able to chillax in the basement with my little nephew (whom we’ll henceforth call “Little Nephew”) and watch Despicable Me 2 on the telly.
Little Nephew is three years old, just an itty bitty tiny guy. Adorably rambunctious personality. Always running around and can’t sit still for very long. And so you would think that sitting through an entire movie, for him, would be an impossiblish feat to accomplish. But he stayed for the whole 98 minutes. Granted, he wasn’t sitting through all of it; he was bouncing around all over the place, jumping from couch to ottoman and ottoman to couch, repeatedly. But he did stay.
And then…in the midst of all of this… Remember that one time when the most heartwarmingly tender moment happened in my life? I do!
It was Despicable Me 2, right? Yeah, so there were all these happy little yellow minions on the screen, and then a turn of events occurred that made the yellow minions turn violet and villainous. One of the purple minions soon would be approaching Gru’s house. When I foresaw this, I voiced to Little Nephew, “Oh no! I think the scary purple guy is coming soon! When the purple guy comes, I might need you to hold me!”
A minute passed. A minute might have been enough time for Little Nephew to forget what I had said, especially since I was practically at the point of betting money that he hadn’t really heard me, what with all his bouncy preoccupation.
But then Mwwrreeaahhhh!!!!! the scary purple guy arrived at Gru’s house, and not even Gru’s intimidating quadruped anglerfish stood a chance against that mean minion, and so out of sheer fearful instinct I said, “Uh oh! There’s the purple guy!” and immediately, with no trace of hesitation, Little Nephew ran over to me, leapt onto my lap, and snuggled me!
Oh.
My.
Word.
Grab a bucket – quick! I am meeeeelllllltttiiiiiiinnnngggg
A couple of days have passed between that instance and now. It was only today that I began to really connect some important dots.
My purple minion experience had made a statement bold enough that it stuck in my mind continuously with no pause, even until now. And while I was thinking about it in my car this morning, a segment of a scriptural verse flashed in the form of neon lights in my brain:
“...becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” – Mosiah 3:19 (The Book of Mormon)
Alongside that mental neon came the recognition that Little Nephew, especially in that scary-evil-purple-minion moment, fit the bill insanely perfectly when it comes to the type of “child” that is outlined in that holy quotation. Particularly I focused my thoughts on the phrases “full of love” and “willing to submit.”
I did not “inflict” any unpleasant thing upon Little Nephew, but I did present my wish to him, in the form of I wish for you to come hold me when I see the scary purple guy. And with 100% eagerness and 0% reluctance, he lovingly submitted. He wanted to comfort me. That touched my heart quite deeply.
And it further made me contemplate the parallelism between Little Nephew’s selfless charity and the selfless charity God wishes for us to practice. I don’t want to sound blasphemous here, but this morning I realized that, during Despicable Me 2, I felt a little bit like “the Lord,” and Little Nephew seemed a little bit like “a child.” (Uh, well, he already totally is a child, but I mean the “child” in Mosiah 3:19.) The child wanted to serve me because he loved me, and I loved him. Simply put, isn’t that the way our relationship with God should be?
God loves us so much. He is our actual Father and we are His actual children. He wants the best for us. He knows what’s best for us. The kingdom He’s got developing on this earth is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It’s what we can be part of, if we do all we can to maintain our beautifully priceless relationship with Him, which is done through serving Him and helping His kingdom grow.
