“I heard he came home early. He’s not a REAL RM.” Have any of you heard comments like these around campus or among your friends? I know I have. One of my friends came home early from his mission to straighten things out. His goal was to go back, but because he came home, some of our friends treated him as if he wore a scarlet letter across his chest. They wanted nothing to do with him. But as a church-affiliated school, isn’t our goal to rise above the petty and superficial? We must become saints and help those in need, without passing judgment.
These friends could have been much more helpful in the aid of this already pained missionary by changing their viewpoint. Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” If these people could have looked upon this young man with compassion instead of grief, I believe he could have straightened out his problems and gotten back out in the mission field much faster.
When the age change for missionaries occurred, many of us expected the large influx of missionaries but didn’t expect that more would return early. This is something for which we must prepare ourselves. Instead of looking on these troubled hearts with disdain and failure, we must reach out with support. Let us lend them our shoulders and lift them to a higher plain. Let us put on the title we claim and become saints.
Drew Ferguson
Denton, Texas
