Definition of Love

There is one other ideal that I would teach you who are teenagers: Someday-someday soon for some of you-you are going to have the marvelous experience of learning to love someone else more than you love yourself.  This is a crowning achievement in life, yet countless thousands live out their lives in this world and do not achieve this experience. It does not come, I think in a courtship or even on a honeymoon; but it is a reward for building this little kingdom. Someday when you hold a little boy or girl in your arms and know that he belongs to you, this experience may come to you.

I recall on one occasion, when I was returning from seminary to my home for lunch, that as I drove in my wife met me in the driveway. I could tell by the expression on her face that something was wrong. 'Cliff has been killed,' she said. 'They want you to come over.' As I hastened around the corner to where Cliff lived with his wife and our sons and his little daughter, I saw Cliff lying in the middle of the highway with a blanket over him. The ambulance was just pulling away with little Colleen. Cliff had been on his way out to the farm and had stopped to cross the street to take little Colleen to her mother who waited on the opposite curb. But the child, as children will, broke from her father's hand and slipped into the street. A large truck was coming. Cliff jumped from the curb and pushed his little daughter from the path of the truck-but he wasn't soon enough.

A few days later I had the responsibility of talking at the funeral of Cliff and little Colleen. Someone said, 'What a terrible waste. Certainly he ought to have stayed on the curb. He knew the child might have died. But he had four sons and a wife to provide for. What a pathetic waste!' And I estimated that that individual never had had the experience of loving someone more than he loved himself.

To you who are young, this experience of loving someone more than you love yourself can come, insofar, as I know, only through the exercise of the power of creation. Through it you become really Christian, and you know, as few others know, what the word 'Father' means when it is spoken of in the scriptures; and you feel some of the love and concern that He has for us, and you may experience some of the remorse and sorrow that must be his if we fail to accept all that is beautiful and praiseworthy and of good report in this world.

-Boyd K. Packer