Elder Holland taught the following about a young man’s
experience shortly before his mission.
“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).
