From Stephen E. Robinson and yesterday’s post: “One of the results of her-less-than perfect family situation was troubled teenagers. Now in middle age she is faced with raising some of her grandchildren—again, all alone. Without a faithful companion, without the priesthood in her home, without the blessings that are realized where the ideal family setting is possible, it is almost inevitable that my friend should feel that her “scores” as a wife and mother, and perhaps even as a person, aren’t very high. When she goes to church and sees other “ideal” LDS families, when she hears them bear their testimonies and give thanks for all their spiritual blessings, she sees in her mind the judges holding up the scorecards that say 9.9 or 10.0. When she looks at her own life, her own failed marriage, her own troubled children, she knows that the scores are much lower, and she worries about her place in the kingdom. Well, she needn’t worry, for she is faithful to her covenants in her troubles as the rest of us are in our blessings. True, there are some things she cannot do, but these are a result of her circumstances, not choices pursued by her own free will, and where there is no choice, there can be no condemnation. I doubt that when the ‘degree of difficulty’ is factored in for the life she leads, her crown will shine brighter than many others, for God always factors into his judgments the “degree of difficulty.”5
Continuing. . . . “Whenever I am tempted to feel superior to other Saints, the parable of the divers comes to my mind, and I repent. At least at a swim meet, we can usually tell which dives are the most difficult. But here in mortality, we cannot always tell who is carrying what burdens: limited intelligence, chemical depression, compulsive behaviors, learning disabilities, dysfunctional or abusive family background, poor health, physical or other handicaps—no one chooses these things. So I must not judge my brothers and sisters. I am thankful for my blessings but not smug about them, for I never want to hear the Scorer say to me, “Sure you had better form, but she had a harder life. When you factor in the degree of difficulty, she beat you hands down.”
So, enduring to the end doesn’t have much to do with suffering in silence, overcoming all life’s obstacles, or even achieving the LDS ideal (“pointing our toes” and “keeping our feet together”). It just means not giving up. It means keeping—to the best of our abilities—the commitments we made to Christ when we entered into the marriage of the gospel. It means not divorcing the Savior or Cheating on him by letting some other love become more important in our lives. It means not rejecting the blessings of the atonement that he showered upon us when we entered his church and the kingdom.~Stephen E. Robinson, Believing Christ, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019). 286-88
