Welcome to my evening scripture study thought process. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I was reading in the Book of Mormon about Zeezrom.  If you don't remember, it's a great bad guy repents and turns good guy story, along with a little miraculous healing.  I like it.  But I had the thought that if I met Zeezrom, maybe if he knocked on my door as a missionary or was asked to give a sermon in church, would it bother me that he had been so conniving and mean and hateful towards men of God, and who knows what else he did that wasn't kept in the record?  I hope not.  I don't think so.  Anyway, it got me thinking about other "good guys" who live less than perfect lives.  Well, that's everyone.  But for some reason it bothers people a lot more if a spiritual leader sins.  (Nate was devastated when he found out Martin Luther King Jr was an adulterer).  One time my sister and I had a completely irreverent conversation that I guess I could call "what if the prophet" which started when she heard something negative about a President of the LDS Church, and we then began asking each other questions that mostly started with "would it bother you if he.." and "what if he had done....".   The conclusion?  A resounding NO, our faith is not based on the sins of the prophet, past or present.  (Besides, after our conversation we realized that most of the sinful scenarios we had come up with could be found in the scriptures, often done by the prophets themselves).  So why, then, is it so difficult to look past the wrongdoings of spiritual leaders?  I think of poor Joseph Smith.  A lot was asked of that boy.  And since most of his history is written by people who either adored him (positive stories) and those who distrusted/hated/wanted him dead (negative stories) then there are a lot of mixed messages about his life.  But the point is that even if every terrible sinful story were true, Why should it shake my faith?  If anything, the adversary would have been working overtime tempting the man, and nowhere in the scriptures does it say prophets are sinless.  The only personal choice I know he made that affects my life is the decision to pray in a grove of trees.......pretty much everything else is between him and God and the same goes for every prophet before and after him.  But it is so common for people to glorify spiritual leaders that it can be crushing to find out the possiblity that they just might spank their kids, yell at their wife, have an addiction, or a bad temper, or a deep dark secret.  Often people get so carried away by the wonderful stories....like boy Joseph refusing alcohol as a pain killer when he had to have surgery...and they think he must have been super amazing every second of his life and forget that he was human.  We all are.

Aaaannnnnyyywwwaaaayyyyy.  Now that I have ranted, here is how my day went:  Avery cried all day.  Teeth or ear infection, only time will tell.  Grayden cried all evening. (Poor thing, his loving mother cooked him a nice hot meal for dinner, so of course he had to tantrum for an hour and a half.
He has a hard life).  I spray painted the long wooden handle of a former rake to look like a light saber so we can use it to hit his birthday piñata.  I spray painted his headboard that I am going to decorate with a vinyl Star Wars logo.  I went to visit teach a girl in my ward who I had never met and who is moving tomorrow.   I.....fed my kids.  Remember how I said Avery cried all stinking day?  There wasn't much time for anything else.  Grayden learned how to skip and snap.  But not at the same time.  I ordered a ridiculously overpriced light saber ice pop contraption for the birthday.  (But seriously it is so cool, I got it at thinkgeek.com).  Now it is all of 9pm and I am exhausted.  So as soon as I clean my house, I'm going to bed :)