Strange Answers

"One of the greatest weaknesses in most of us is our lack of faith in ourselves." (Elder L. Tom Perry)

So I had to check this out. Here's why. P Diddy (Sean Combs...aka Puff Daddy) tweeted this today, and of course Mormons everywhere are going nuts. Well, you guys, I don't take anything for granted because those Mormon myths have a way of spreading themselves around. Take, for example, the story about Snoop Dogg joining the church. Absolutely false but someone put up a fake CNN page and the story went viral among the faithful. Anyway, I did a little sleuthing, and I actually found the talk Elder Perry gave in which he said this. It's called "Be the Best of Whatever You Are" and was given in March of 1974 at a BYU devotional. You can read it here.

Surprising that P. Diddy would be quoting Elder Perry, a man he probably does not know. I also looked to see if he actually tweeted it, and he did. But that aside, I like the line after this, where Elder Perry went on to say: "One of our common failings is to depreciate our tremendous worth."

Ouch.

I see the worth in others so easily, but I know I am guilty of depreciating my own. Today I read an article about Oprah Winfrey. I like Oprah. I think she is a lot of things. Generous and kind hearted, of course. But she is human, too. The article pointed out her failings, but it did so in a way that made her benevolence seem all the greater. I knew she'd been abused as a young girl, but I didn't know the extent. It was worse than I thought, and I imagined Miss Winfrey as a girl, and then pondered her career is a public figure. The article lent a sense of vulnerability to the steely determination that was her rise to fame and fortune. And recognizing her vulnerability helped me to see how impressive her success is. She didn't allow those horrible things to depreciate her own value.

It is easy to forget that every person, even Oprah Winfrey, has a life filled with so much more than just success. There are also failures and there are also tragedies.

I am imperfect. Right now, it seems, my life is a wreck. A failure. But I see that I have gifts and potential, and I believe that those things were given to me by God. Elder Perry said something more, though. And I think that the key to his message was this: am I going to be among "the divine children of our Father in heaven who have enough faith in themselves to make the effort to do something important with their lives."?

Enough faith in myself to make the effort to do something important with my life...hmmmmmm. Now that is something to ponder. Right now I don't. And I'm not. And I know that faith is more than just saying something. It's more than a feeling you get. Faith has to be more. It has to be action.

A strange day, to be able to find such a good message through such an unexpected source...a message from an apostle of God. And to have read that article. I really don't believe that life is filled with random coincidences, and sometimes, I really think God is giving out the answer to the test because He sees you need it. That and you need to know that He hears you.