Browsing Tag: mistakes

Many years ago I read the biography of Camilla Kimball, the wife of Spencer W. Kimball who was the President and Prophet of the LDS church.  My favorite part of the book is when it describes a date that Camilla went on to a dance with a boy she didn’t want to be with.  She made an excuse, went to the bathroom and climbed out of the bathroom window and left the dance and the boy.  I loved that story because it was such a normal teenage thing to do and it left me feeling that if she could do something so normal and turn out so great that there was hope for me. She went on to bless the lives of many people and do a lot of good in the world despite being very human. Sometimes when I see people who appear to always have been perfect it’s hard to relate to them. But when I see people who have weaknesses and who have made mistakes in their lives and they are doing great things, it gives me hope that I too can do better and be better. My husband’s current calling at church is the Stake Clerk.  He gets to work closely with the Stake Presidency and I have gotten to know them a little better than other Stake Presidencies. They are good men but in interacting with them it’s very easy to see that they are also just ordinary men who desire to serve the Lord and do their best.  They are willing to give of their time and efforts to serve others but because they are normal they also make mistakes, have their own weaknesses and are not perfect.  Sometimes people look at church leaders and complain because they make mistakes and have weaknesses and decide the church can’t possibly be true because of it.  I think it’s amazing that God can take ordinary, fallible people and use them anyway to further His work here on the earth, despite their weaknesses. It gives me hope that even with all of my problems and weaknesses, He can use an ordinary person like me to do a little good in the world too.