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Sabbath Devotional :: In Justice and Equity
The day my oldest son turned 8-years-old, another precious boy lost his life. David was a member of our ward and had been my primary student and one of my husband’s scouts over the years. He was unarmed and 17 when he was shot and killed by an officer in broad daylight in an Austin, Texas suburb. On this, I want to be very clear: the officer who shot our friend was a good officer with a good reputation, and though he knew David was unarmed, he followed his training that day. What’s more, both David and the officer were Black. Still–David, in his fear, ran. And the officer, in…
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The Power of Real Humility
Humility is not the absence of confidence or the act of putting yourself or others down. Humility is recognizing from where you get your strength. Whether you think that you can do everything on your own or that you can do nothing at all — that is pride. Humility is being confident because of the Lord. I wrote that summation on my mission. Humility, when properly understood, is such a beautiful, inspiring, and power-giving principle. And yet, sadly, it’s a topic that has been so distorted within both our Christian and American cultures. Two stories illustrate this misconstruction for me. Story one: I was in Primary when a boy said…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Embracing the Period of Great Humbling
Many years ago, in the mythical days just before the internet sped up communication, I was a student studying abroad in London. General Conference had happened somewhere, but it hadn’t happened yet for us, and just as we left to head out on a month-long trip in Europe, a friend got a package containing homemade conference cassette tapes. Because of this, a few days later I found myself on a train, struggling to get discernible words out of a small portable cassette player. Suddenly, a voice came through clearly. Gordon B. Hinkley was reading a talk that President Benson felt too unwell to give himself, and for some reason it…
