Standing For Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts And Homes

Gordon B. Hinckley was ordained the world leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1995. He lives with his wife, Marjorie Pat Hinckley, in Salt Lake City. The Hinckleys, who have been married for more than sixty years, have five children and twenty-five grandchildren. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Standing for Something Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes By Gordon B. Hinckley Simon & Schuster Audio Copyright © 2000 Gordon B. HinckleyAll right reserved. ISBN: 9780743507066 Chapter One Love: The Lodestar of Life Love is the only force that can erase the differences between peopleor bridge the chasms of bitterness. When I was a little boy, we children traced paper hearts at schoolon Valentine's Day. At night, we dropped them at the doors of ourfriends, stamped on the porch, and then ran into the dark to hide. Almost without exception, those Valentines had printed on them: "Ilove you." I have since come to know that love is more than a paperheart. Love is the very essence of life. It is the pot of gold atthe end of the rainbow. Yet it is not found only at the end of therainbow. Love is at the beginning also, and from it springs thebeauty that arches across the sky on a stormy day. Love is thesecurity for which children weep, the yearning of youth, theadhesive that binds marriage, and the lubricant that preventsdevastating friction in the home; it is the peace of old age, thesunlight of hope shining through death. How rich are those who enjoyit in their associations with family, friends, and neighbors! Love, like faith, is a gift of God. It is also the most enduring andmost powerful virtue. In our youth, we sometimes acquire faulty ideas of love, believingthat it can be imposed or simply created for convenience. I notedthe following in a newspaper column some years ago: One of the grand errors we tend to make when we are young issupposing that a person is a bundle of qualities, and we add up theindividual's good and bad qualities, like a bookkeeper working ondebits and credits. If the balance is favorable, we may decide totake the jump [into marriage].... The world is full of unhappymen and women who married because ... it seemed to be a goodinvestment. Love, however, is not an investment; it is an adventure.And when marriage turns out to be as dull and comfortable as a soundinvestment, the disgruntled party soon turns elsewhere....Ignorant people are always saying, "I wonder what he sees in her,"not realizing that what he sees in her (and what no one else cansee) is the secret essence of love.I think of two friends from my high school and university years. Hewas a boy from a country town, plain in appearance, without money orapparent promise. He had grown up on a farm, and if he had anyquality that was attractive, it was the capacity to work. He carriedbologna sandwiches in a brown paper bag for his lunch, and swept theschool floors to pay his tuition. But with all of his rusticappearance, he had a smile and a personality that seemed to sing ofgoodness. She was a city girl who had come out of a comfortablehome. She would not have won a beauty contest, but she was wholesomein her decency and integrity, and attractive in her decorum anddress. Something wonderful took place between them. They fell in love. Somewhispered that there were far more promising boys for her, and agossip or two noted that perhaps other girls might have interestedhim. But these two laughed and danced and studied together throughtheir school years. They married when people wondered how they couldever earn enough to stay alive. He struggled through hisprofessional school and came out well in his class. She scrimped andsaved and worked and prayed. She encouraged and sustained, and whenthings were really tough, she said quietly, "Somehow we can makeit." Buoyed by her faith in him, he kept going through the difficultyears. Children came, and together they loved them and nourishedthem and gave them the security that came of their own love for andloyalty to each other. Now many years have passed. Their childrenare grown, a lasting credit to them and to the communities in whichthey live. I happened to find myself on the same flight as this couple a fewyears ago. I walked down the aisle in the semidarkness of the cabinand saw a woman, white-haired, her head on her husband's shoulder asshe dozed. His hand was clasped warmly about hers. He was awake andrecognized me. She awakened, and we talked. They were returning froma convention where he had delivered a paper before a learnedsociety. He said little about it, but she proudly spoke of thehonors accorded him. I wish that I might have caught with a camera the look on her faceas she talked of him. Forty-five years earlier, people withoutunderstanding had asked what they saw in each other. I thought ofthat as I returned to my seat. Their friends of those days saw onlya farm boy from the country and a smiling girl with freckles on hernose. But these two found in each other love and loyalty, peace andfaith in the future. There was a flowering in them of somethingdivine, planted there by that Father who is our God. In their schooldays, they had lived worthy of that flowering of love. They hadlived with virtue and faith, with appreciation and respect for selfand one another. In the years of their difficult professional andeconomic struggles, they had found their greatest earthly strengthin their companionship. Now, in mature age, they were finding peaceand quiet satisfaction together. There is nothing as energizing, as confidence-building, assustaining as the power of love. How substantial is its influence onthe human mind and heart! How great and magnificent is its power inovercoming fear and doubt, worry and discouragement! Continues... Excerpted from Standing for Something by Gordon B. Hinckley Copyright © 2000 by Gordon B. Hinckley. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.