The Two Great Commandments

Spring has arrived, and I’m gonna try and articulate a thought that has been marinating in my head for several weeks. 

As a preface, let me say this: I’m a very active Latter-day Saint: church goer, temple attender, tithe payer, the whole 9 yards. I visit teach, I fast, and I serve in my callings. I LOVE my faith. And I love the organization of the church, for so many reasons.

That being said, I had two conversations back in February that are still with me. 

One was at a wedding, and the other was in the living room of a friend in the middle of the night.

I said something in both interactions that I’ve continued to think about, and I want to more fully express the thought here.

It goes like this:

At the end of my life, I don’t want to be evaluated by how many times I was in church, or whether I attended stake conference, or if General Conference was a priority in my life.

I don’t want somebody to look at my "stat sheet" and, if they see “good marks,” conclude that I must have been a good person. 

I find that completely offensive.

The Savior taught that everything hangs on two things: whether I love God, and if I love my neighbor.

I’m not saying that covenants and commandments aren’t important; Christ taught those too, and covenants, commandments, and prophets have made all the difference in my life. But as I think about my own spirituality, the piercing questions I ask myself come from pondering those two great commandments. 

Today, for example, I’m much more concerned about if I’m an ass in my interactions with other people, and if I'm actually looking out for my neighbor. Do I genuinely mourn with someone who is mourning? Have I learned to apologize when I make mistakes or hurt someone else? Do I care about another person’s feelings and perspective as much as my own? Do I try to elevate myself or focus on the contributions of others? Is my life about me, or is it about service? Do I practice honesty and live with integrity? Am I genuine in my interactions with other people? What are my motivations? Do I freely extend love, forgiveness, and compassion to others, recognizing that I desperately need those same things? Do I feed my ego, or do I live with humility?

These are the things I think about.

Questions like these expose how much I lack, and increasingly fill me with deeper gratitude for the Savior.

Christ’s example gives me one towering, upward-climbing ideal after another, and I am eternally grateful for the staggering gift of His atonement. He always inspires me to examine myself, start over, choose love and kindness, apologize, serve, humble myself, forgive, prioritize, recognize my own faults, and keep trying. His virtues are astonishing, demanding, and beautiful. But here's the thing:

His central characteristic is love. 

And at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to for me. 

At the end, I hope my life story reveals a simple woman who tried to LIVE what she believed, even though she was sometimes (frequently) an ass and she constantly fell short.

But even in the falling short,

she trusted in God's grace and found joy.