Celebrate the Beauty of our Differences

It takes courage and faith to celebrate and appreciate the beauty of our differences, to give others space to discover their own paths, and to trust that God will help us just as He helps those around us. This may include celebrating the wedding of a friend when you have no marriage prospects on the horizon. It may include being excited for someone who just got into the graduate school of their dreams even though you didn’t. I know what it is like to feel forgotten or insecure when others get the things I hoped for, but if we can learn to celebrate and appreciate differences, I believe our hearts will be more open to what God has in store for us.

At BYU Women’s Conference in 2015, Elder M. Russell Ballard counseled:

Each of you must come to know what the Lord wants for you individually, given the choices before you. . . .

Once you know the Lord’s will, you can then move forward in faith to fulfill your individual purpose. One sister may be inspired to continue her education and attend medical school, allowing her to have significant impact on her patients and to advance medical research. For another sister, inspiration may lead her to forgo a scholarship to a prestigious institution and instead begin a family much earlier than has become common in this generation, allowing her to make a significant and eternal impact on her children now.

Then he posed this question: “Is it possible for two similarly faithful women to receive such different responses to the same basic questions?” He emphatically responded:

Absolutely! What’s right for one woman may not be right for another. That’s why it is so important that we should not question each other’s choices or the inspiration behind them.⁷

With this understanding we can encourage each other, celebrate and appreciate our differences, and move forward in a partnership with the Lord. We need not judge or criticize. Our encouragement and love amid our differences will enhance our capacity to celebrate together. It will also enhance our capacity to understand God’s plan for us as we create that plan with Him.

Erin Kramer Holmes, "On Loss and Waiting, BYU Magzine, Winter 2018, 28.