Secrets

O.K. so I have a confession to make.  I might as well come clean.  For Christmas, my parents gave Tino a subscription to a really cool magazine.  I am the one that makes the weekly trek down the street to the mailbox.  This means that I am the first person to find out that Tino's cool magazine for the month has arrived.  I sneak it into the house.  I hide it under my pillow.  This magazine ROCKS.  Am I a bad person for taking my son's magazine when it was a gift intended for him and not for me?  Is it wrong for me to enjoy this magazine and read it cover to cover before handing it over?  After having the magazine in my possession for approximately one week, I take it into his room and exclaim excitedly "Hey Ti-man . . . your magazine arrived!!!" 

Seriously, I don't know what the appeal is.  Is it that I am the parent of a recently turned 12 year old?  Is it that I work with teens every single day?  Is it that I once was a teen?

One of the articles this month is about tolerance. Elder Russell M. Nelson states:  Tolerance is a virtue much needed in our turbulent world. But we must recognize that there is a difference between tolerance and tolerate. Your gracious tolerance for an individual does not grant him or her license to do wrong, nor does your tolerance obligate you to tolerate his or her misdeed. That distinction is fundamental to an understanding of this vital virtue.

An erroneous assumption could be made that if a little of something is good, a lot must be better. Not so! Overdoses of needed medication can be toxic. Boundless mercy could oppose justice. So tolerance, without limit, could lead to spineless permissiveness.

The Lord drew boundary lines to define acceptable limits of tolerance. Danger rises when those divine limits are disobeyed. Just as parents teach little children not to run and play in the street, the Savior taught us that we need not tolerate evil. “Jesus went into the temple of God, … and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers” (Matthew 21:12; see also Mark 11:15). Though He loves the sinner, the Lord said that He “cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (D&C 1:31).

Real love for the sinner may compel courageous confrontation—not acquiescence! Real love does not support self-destructing behavior.

I had never before distinguished a difference between tolerance and tolerating misdeeds. This topic has been weighing heavily on my mind lately.  If Tino knew my deep dark secret, would he have tolerance towards me or would he tolerate my misdeed of magazine stealing borrowing? 

On a more serious note, how often do we turn a blind eye towards someone that has made poor choices and is spiraling down the slippery path of self-destruction?  How often are we willing to confront that person courageously?  Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmm.