Never too little

Follow-up to: Sixteen Hours

There always comes a time in life when our labor is done, whether for the day or for good, and we have opportunity to look back and behold all that we have accomplished.


All too often when the work was of the utmost importance we look back and see not so much what we were able to do but what was not done. We look at the times that we lost our temper with our children, not the times that we were restrained and gave our children an example of self-control. We see the yelling matches but not the peacemaking, the cold speech without the warm words.

Of utmost relevance to me is the missionary work that I see, and there was a time when I saw what I wasn't able to do more than what I did accomplish. If I hadn't had to work through that period then this post would most likely have never been written at all, nor the story that precedes it. But what I said above applies to the missionary work as much as it does to anything else. Never was I perfect, and had I been then many more sheep might have been brought into the fold. But then, too, I cannot control their actions nor foresee the unforeseeable, and in my calculations I must make allowance for these factors as well.

I have been called to the work, and it is being performed. I have faltered, I have tripped over my feet a few times, and I have continued. My time as a full-time missionary in the Utah Salt Lake City West Mission is coming quick to a close, and I can stand with my back straight and my eyes held high.

This is the thing that I preach right now, that it is more important to look at the tower and not the ruins, the distance run and not the races failed. Not one of us is perfect, nor even with perfection could we win every prize- else there would be none that acted contrary to the will of God. But the good that you have done is eternal, and this is a foundation upon which you can build much more.

Take a lesson from your weakness, yes, but only for the purpose of making such weak things strong unto you. Remember the end, that your children turned out well and praiseworthy, not that you could not make every step perfectly along the way.