Elder
Holland taught the following about a young returned missionary:
“He … told
of coming home from a date shortly after he had been ordained an elder at age
18. Something had happened on this date of which he was not proud. He did not
go into any details, nor should he have done so in a public setting. To this
day I do not know the nature of the incident, but it was significant enough to
him to have affected his spirit and his self-esteem.
“As he sat
in his car for a while in the driveway of his own home, thinking things through
and feeling genuine sorrow for whatever had happened, his nonmember mother came
running frantically from the house straight to his car. In an instant she
conveyed that this boy’s younger brother had just fallen in the home, had hit
his head sharply and was having some kind of seizure or convulsion. The
nonmember father had immediately called for an ambulance, but it would take
some time at best for help to come.
“‘Come and
do something,’ she cried. ‘Isn’t there something you do in your Church at times
like this? You have their priesthood. Come and do something.’ …
“… On this
night when someone he loved dearly needed his faith and his strength, this
young man could not respond. Given the feelings he had just been wrestling with
and the compromise he felt he had just made—whatever that was—he could not bring
himself to go before the Lord and ask for the blessing that was needed”
“‘No one who
has not faced what I faced that night will ever know the shame I felt and the
sorrow I bore for not feeling worthy to use the priesthood I held. It is an
even more painful memory for me because it was my own little brother who needed
me and my beloved nonmember parents who were so fearful and who had a right to
expect more of me. But as I stand before you today, I can promise you this,’ he
said. ‘I am not perfect, but from that night onward I have never done anything
that would keep me from going before the Lord with confidence and asking for
His help when it is needed. Personal worthiness is a battle in this world in
which we live,’ he acknowledged, ‘but it is a battle I am winning. I have felt
the finger of condemnation pointing at me once in my life, and I don’t intend
to feel it ever again if I can do anything about it. And, of course,’ he
concluded, ‘I can do everything about it’” (“The Confidence of Worthiness,” 59).
