French is not who I am; it is where I was born. White is not who I am; it is the color of my skin, or lack thereof. Professor is not who I am; it is what I did to support my family. General Authority Seventy is not who I am; it is where I serve in the kingdom at this time.
“First and foremost,” as President Nelson reminded us, I am a “child of God.” So are you, and so are all other people around us. I pray that we may come to a greater appreciation of this wonderful truth. It changes everything!
We may have been raised in different cultures; we may come from different socioeconomic circumstances; our mortal heritage, including our nationality, skin color, food preferences, political orientation, etc., may vary greatly. But we are His children, all of us, without exception. We have the same divine origin and the same limitless potential through the grace of Jesus Christ.
C. S. Lewis put it this way: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. … There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.”
"We Are His Children," General Conference October 2023
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