Editor’s note: “The Spoken Word” is shared by Derrick Porter every Sunday during the weekly Tabernacle Choir broadcast from Temple Square. Delivered on Sunday, June 14, 2026. This week is the 5,048th broadcast.
Note: Reservations are required to attend Music and the Spoken Word at the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Click here for more information on how to make a reservation. Additionally, as the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra are scheduled to perform at California’s Hollywood Bowl, there will be no live performance of “Music & the Spoken Word” on June 28 (and no public rehearsal on June 25), but past performances will be streamed.
Life is beautiful, but it’s also difficult. Wins and losses, progress and setbacks, moments of joy and seasons of disappointment all combine to give us experiences that can shape us into who we are meant to be: our best selves.
Often we start with rugged, jagged mountains, like the Rocky Mountains. But as life refines us, we become more like the Scottish Highlands, smooth and steady and quietly confident of who we are becoming. As mountains form and become established over time, they leave behind traces of what they have endured – evidence of their past and progress through time. And, like mountains, we bear imprints on our own lives. It’s a reminder of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we want to go.
Some of life’s greatest lessons come from experiences we would never choose. (For a more complete discussion of this idea, see April 2026 General Conference, Elder Gerrit W. Gong, The Great Gift of Eternity: The Atonement, Resurrection, and Restoration of Jesus Christ.) And it is often these difficult moments that leave their mark. But these traces, evidence of difficult challenges, become sacred, reminding us and teaching others of the progress they represent.
Don Jessop, a 27-year-old husband and father, was living out his cowboy dreams when a tragic accident left him paralyzed from the chest down. Suddenly, the life of his young family changed. They moved to a new house better suited to Don’s needs, where he learned to move from room to room in a wheelchair.
In doing so, they unintentionally left scratches, gouges, and other marks along the door and door frame. Over time, these marks accumulated and became visible to all who entered.
Years later, after Don passed away, his children meticulously renovated the house, adding new paint and new carpet. However, one thing that was not restored was the traces left by his father’s wheelchair.
To the family, these marks were sacred, evidence of a difficult life well lived, marked by growth, resilience, and love.
We each carry scars from difficult times in our lives, but these challenges and their scars don’t have to define us. Rather, they can inspire us and those around us to keep moving forward. May we accept and even be grateful for the evidence of life’s difficult challenges. Scars and gouges testify to experience, hard work, progress, and belief in the future.
Tuning…
“Music & the Spoken Word” broadcasts are available on KSL-TV, KSL News Radio 1160AM/102.7FM, KSL.com, BYUtv, BYUradio, Dish and DirecTV, SiriusXM (Ch. 143), tabernaclechoir.org, youtube.com/TheTabernacleChoir, and Amazon Alexa (skills must be enabled). The program will be broadcast live on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. Mountain Time on these stations. Find airing information by state and city at musicandthespokenword.com/viewers-listeners/airing-schedule.
