My aunt Susan spoke in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday and
mentioned that the message of Music & the Spoken Word on Sunday, February 2nd
was about how we can never know the whole story of an individual’s life. We
might know bits and pieces, parts of a person’s situation, but never the whole
story. We may never know what someone is hiding beneath the surface.
I received a text last Thursday morning letting me know that
my cousin Jonathan Twiggs had died. It would appear to be a drug overdose. We
will never know the turmoil that went on inside Jonny. We will never know the
demons he fought every single day. Instead we will love him without judgment
and know that he is now at peace. We will try to give what little comfort we
can to his family as they live through the pain and anguish of losing a vital
part of their life.
It is so easy to judge other people. It’s easy to label the
person who is always a little late to work in the morning. But did you know she is a
single mother with 3 young kids and a sick mother she is up taking care of all
night long? That no matter how early she gets up she still has 100 things to do
before she can walk out the door in the morning, but her income is all she has
to get by on so she does the best she can.
In a blog post Iceberg Within Us that I wrote back in 2009 I briefly touched on this same
idea.
My cousin Natalie made the following comment regarding that post: “This is so
true and I loved the quote and your insight. I've heard it said, "Always
be kind, for everyone is fighting a very tough and unseen battle." I try
to remember that when people frustrate me--you never know what people have been
through. Some days it's a struggle just to get out of bed and get dressed and
we never know how our kindness (or lack thereof) can affect a person.”
It’s amazing what you find out about other people when you
are going through something. When you have a miscarriage you find out that some
of the people closest to you have been through the same thing and you had no
idea. When my sister was diagnosed with thyroid cancer it was amazing the
amount of people who were survivors of the same thing. People I thought had
been happily married forever have shared stories of divorce and how they got
through it and found happiness in a 2nd marriage. There is just no
way to know everything about a person.
“Each life is an unfolding story—a story of growth and
learning and change, a story of happiness and heartbreak, a story of success
and sorrow. So perhaps we ought to be a little more patient, a little more
forgiving. Perhaps we ought to be slower to judge and quicker to love... Never forget that every life and every occasion is unfolding in a unique
and distinctive way. We may know some, but never all, of the story; so
err on the side of compassion. Hold off on criticism and sarcasm, and
never withhold kindness and mercy. And then, someday, when the whole
story is finally written, we’ll be thankful that we were able to
contribute—at least in some small way—to a happy ending." –Lloyd D.
Newell.