Deep pain results from hearing someone say, “It’s their own fault” when someone whose life doesn’t meet their definition of righteous is murdered.
It’s a torment that doesn’t easily go away. Everything in this fallen world too often reeks of tragedy: From the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida in 2016 to the Borderline Bar and Grill massacre on college night in Thousand Oaks, California in 2018, and every other atrocity in between, before, and since. The recent horrors of women, children and babies being shot and burned alive by Mexican drug cartels isn’t even as low as humanity can get, though it teeters on the edge of that cesspool. Even copping a plea of mistaken identity doesn’t excuse the latest hideous actions in any degree.
The Atonement of Jesus Christ for the sins and suffering of everyone who ever came or will come to earth gave all, even the most vile, immortality. However, where they spend that immortality depends on their behaviors while here. Deliberate killers are likely to live forever in a “hell” of their own making. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)
God loves all of His children but He doesn’t even like, let alone love, everything we do. He is no respecter of persons. If we keep our covenants and His laws here, if we keep the covenants we made with Him before we came to earth, then it makes no difference that we were born into a life of ease and chose a spouse who wasn’t so fortunate. That spouse may be treated badly by the wealthy man’s family but it doesn’t mean she is a gold-digger, or any lesser kind of person. An older woman, with or without assets, may marry a younger man. That doesn’t mean she was a cougar on the prowl.
Heavenly Father doesn’t pay attention to such discrepancies as age, wealth, background, education, occupation, physical or mental infirmity, skin color, spiritual beliefs, immigration status or the fact the wife served in the military and the husband didn’t. He looks upon his Spirit Children with love and wants their return to Him. He wants them as pure as they can be, even though perfection is a long way off for most of us.
Obviously, not everyone is going to make it back to the highest of the kingdoms in Heaven. We will each go to the mansion or the shack there that our actions on earth have earned. Regardless of where it will be, for most people it will be far more wonderful than anything here on earth. Yet we need to be acutely aware of how we treat other people while on earth and watch our attitude toward life’s events, good and bad.
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