Perhaps it was only a cry of pain or doubt, anger or bewilderment, and then we recover the balance or the hope of before, or the courage, but cannot find everyone who heard us to tell them, assure them, I'm all right now. I drowned for a few minutes, but I'm above water again, and swimming. But there are other downs which are worth sharing, because they build bridges between us. Don't let us add isolation, envy or the feeling that compared with others we have failed, make individual pain deeper than it has to be. Nobody gets it all right.
Courage is wonderful.
We all admire those who carry adversity well. Pride is something quite different, the mask that says, 'I have everything, I never make mistakes, I never hurt,' closes you out of the common brotherhood of humanity, and stops you giving or receiving comfort. At the beginning of the month we had a particularly good talk in sacrament meeting on faith in Christ, not simply that He lived and died as we are told, but in His power to do all that He has promised, IF we do all that we can. No one can, or should, judge what another can do, and sometimes we are not so good at judging what we ourselves could do better. We can be too hard, or too soft.