Though we may have heard a story, phrase, or quote a dozen times at Church, this story shows how these repetitive teachings all take on different meanings depending on when we hear them in our lives.
You’ve probably been in a Church meeting when someone starts sharing a story that you’ve already heard quite a few times. Maybe it feels like a few hundred times. There are probably a few stories you could even recite.
I remember hearing one such story when I was a young man. It was about President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), and I had heard it so many times that I figured I could probably tell it in my sleep.
One stormy night, President Kimball saw a pregnant young mother and her two-year-old daughter in an airport. The mother couldn’t pick up her child because of the threat of miscarriage, so she scooted the sobbing child along with her foot.
Grumpy passengers looked at her judgmentally and said unkind things under their breath, but President Kimball immediately offered to help.