“All we can do”

“I once had a sad and tender conversation with a stake president whose entire life represented a pattern of stalwart obedience. But he and his equally stalwart wife were carrying the burden of feeling total responsibility for the rebellion of their wayward son. He told me about their boy’s very serious mischief and their inability to contain him, despite continual and fervent effort. Then he said, “You know, we always tell our members that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. And the scriptures say that if a man doesn’t know how to manage his own house, how shall he take care of the Church?” (see 1 Timothy 3:5). Because of what he saw as his failure in the home, this man asked if he should request a release from his Church position.

“It was impossible for me to know, and probably impossible for him to know, just how much blame was really his for what his son was doing. But I knew firsthand of his good faith, his good heart, his own good life, and the spiritually successful lives of his other children. As I saw the tears in his eyes, I thought of the prophet Alma, whose rebellious son repented and later himself became a prophet. The older Alma was not released from his position as the high priest among the people of Zarahemla. I thought of other parents whose adolescent children have agency and friends and minds of their own. I thought of our Father in Heaven, whose rebellious offspring included not only Satan and Cain but a third of the hosts of heaven.

“I thought also that, while it is true that we can achieve no other success that will in fact compensate for our failures within or outside our homes, there is a success that compensates when we cannot—after all we can do in good faith (2 Nephi 25:33). That success is the Atonement of Jesus Christ, whose influence can mend what for us is beyond repair. perhaps, I thought, that holy influence could even do for this man’s son what it did for the younger Alma.

“Once we do all we can do, thereby qualifying for the blessings of mercy, the law of justice is satisfied. In addition, the Savior’s healing power may do its work of compensation. But restoring the balance of justice and restitution to an even state is not yet enough. Faith, repentance, and baptism are essential, but they are only the beginning, the gate by which we should enter the “strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:18), not the end of the road”

-The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, by Bruce C. Hafen