We look at other people, and things are not always as they seem. We think it's one way, but it isn't always that way.

We had a large family, and my husband was the bishop when all the children were still very young. I would work all day Saturday and all morning Sunday to get them to church, and I had to get them there early or we just didn't even get there. We would line the whole bench-the whole center bench was filled with our children on the second row back-and we would be there before the meeting started.

I remember one day a sister came up behind me and leaned over and said, "Sister Lant, if my kids were as good as yours and if it was as easy for me as it is for you, I would have a large family too."

Well, I started to cry, and I cried clear through the whole meeting. And my husband kept looking at me like "What is wrong? What is wrong?" I was a mess. I completely had a come-apart. And it was because it wasn't easy.

We tend to judge one another. We judge harshly. Or we judge unfairly as we look at others- unkindly. And we don't really know what one another's situations are. We just have to love each other.


Sister Lant. Roundtable Discussion (Dallin H. Oaks, Jeffrey R. Holland, Julie B. Beck, Susan W. Tanner, Cheryl C. Lant) - Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting: Building Up a Righteous Posterity, February 9, 2008