Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we have the opportunity to celebrate, out of all of God's children, perhaps the two most important to the plan of Salvation. Christ, as they say, is the reason for the season, but on Christmas Eve, we can also take the opportunity to remember Eve, without whom the human race would not exist. Christ is the Redeemer of the World, and Eve is the mother of all of God's children. Through Christ's Atonement and by repenting and making covenants, we can all be spiritually begotten, and through Eve we were all physically begotten. Eve had the courage to forsake the easy comforts of the Garden of Eden and go out into the world to face thorns and thistles and to earn her bread by the sweat of her brow and to endure the greatly multiplied sorrows of childbirth because she had a vision of all of her children through countless generations and she could not wait to do her part to ensure that we all had a chance to come to Earth and receive a physical body. Christ followed in her great footsteps and emulated her courage and left behind the comforts and the glories and the powers of Heaven, and from one of Eve's daughters received a physical body and continued on the great work that Eve had initiated when she took that first bite from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Thanks to Eve, all of us have the opportunity to experience life in this world, and thanks to Christ, all of us who are willing to follow Him have the opportunity to enjoy Eternal Life in the world to come. We should of course think about and remember Jesus Christ on Christmas Eve and on all days, but I hope we also take a moment to remember and honor Eve, especially on Christmas Eve.