While I was attending college, one day the leader of my church came to give an address to the students. His words of encouragement were etched upon my soul as a source of inspiration in all that I would do there after. This is an excerpt from that speech:”Now, be faithful, be true, go forward, be ambitious. Don’t short-circuit yourself. Don’t stop now. Keep growing. Keep going…. You are so choice and so wonderful and the future is so great that you can’t afford to betray yourselves in anyway or to do anything less than that which each of you is capable of accomplishing. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to be a straight-A student. You just have to do your very best with all the capability you have. You have to do your very best. And somehow, if you do that, God will open the way before you and the sun will shine, and your lives will be fruitful and you will accomplish great good in the world in which you take a part….There is no end in sight for the good you can do. Do you know it? You are just simple kids. You are not geniuses. I know that. But the work of the world isn’t done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people who have learned to work in an extraordinary way people of your kind who can do these things. I repeat. Don’t sell yourselves short…”-Gordon B. HinckleyThis great man unfortunately passed away this January, but this painting is sort of my tribute to him, my response that I am trying, I am trying to give my best everyday. And as I do so the Lord is opening the way and the sun does shine! May we all strive for that which we are capable!
12 1/2″ x 24″ oil on masonite