After All We Can Do

My thoughts on Elder Zivic's talk "After All We Can Do"

I’m so behind and you don’t want to know why—let’s just say, “Teens are lots and lots of work.”

Because I read these talks so long ago and am now just reviewing them the thoughts I share won’t be so specific but more feelings. I can tell that I need to repent and write my feelings as soon as I have them as well as not read ahead. I need to nibble on the words from conference instead of gorge.

“All that we can do.” What a phrase. It is loaded with lots of meaning.
1. We must do something.
2. We can’t do it all.
Both of those meanings are downright scary. First, it means that I must do something; be baptized, repent, have faith, endure to the end. Second, it means that I must rely on someone else to make up the slack. I’m not one who likes to abdicate anything, just ask my family, and so giving a bit of my salvation to someone else is downright hard to do. BUT I must because there is NO WAY I can make it to heaven without our Savior’s atonement and I must put my faith and trust in that.

That phrase also has a lot of meaning for me as a parent to children who are starting to spread their wings. I have to apologize to my oldest as he is the one Steve and I are cutting our teeth on. In the same breath though, I must also say the memories of my teen years are very fresh in my mind and therefore I have vivid knowledge of how fast things can turn south. This phrase means that at some point I must remember I have done “all that I can do” and cut the apron strings and let my son fall. It is so painful to watch, and I’m sure I only get a tenth of what our Heavenly Father feels as he watches me fall on my face.

I only hope that “all that I did” was good enough.