Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.

No one would wish a bad marriage on anyone. But where do we think good marriages come from? They don't spring full blown from the head of Zeus any more than does a good education...Why should a marriage require fewer tears and less toil and shabbier commitment than your job or your clothes or your car?

On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.

Life has its share of fears and failures. Sometimes things fall short. Sometimes people fail us, or economies or businesses or governments fail us. But one thing in time or eternity does not fail us-the pure love of Christ.

Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony!

Try not to compare your children, even if you think you are skillful at it. You may say most positively that "Susan is pretty and Sandra is bright," but all Susan will remember is that she isn't bright and Sandra that she isn't pretty. Praise each child individually for what that child is and help him or her escape our culture's obsession with comparing, competing, and never feeling we are "enough.

Believe in miracles. I have seen so many. They came when every indication would say that Hope was lost. Hope is never lost!