Covid Peacemaking for Latter-day Saint Families

The COVID pandemic has presented Latter-day Saint families with challenges that are unprecedented in this generation. With conflicting information in the news and on social media, church members are facing constant pressure to make decisions that affect our relationships in our families, wards, and even our relationship with the Church. COVID has shown us to ourselves, and some of what we are seeing is cause for concern: we are seeing just how easy it is to slip into patterns of contention, disunity, and murmuring. The bedrock decision for each Latter-day Saint family should be to seek peace and understanding, to respond to each other with charity, rather than reacting to our brothers and sisters with anger. In the words of Viktor Frankl, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." The choice to be peacemakers should be expressed and modeled in the home before we enter the doors of our church buildings.