Some say that former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, underwent a transition, of sorts, after leaving the White House in 1981. He went from being an unpopular president, with a 31% approval rating in November of 1980, to a popular former president who was given a 66% approval rating in an ABC poll in 1999.

Much of this, of course, was due to his humanitarian work, both through the Carter Center and for organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. Carter could often be seen laboring with his hands on service projects, uninterested in cashing in on his fame.

But those who knew him best said there was no difference between Carter, the president, and Carter, the lovable humanitarian former president. The only difference was the setting. Carter, one of the most outwardly religious presidents of the modern era, had a habit of putting principles over politics. That didn’t always play well in a political realm, but it garnered respect when that realm was left behind.

He never strayed from his Christian faith. He never strayed from his love of family. He never deviated from his love for his country or devotion to his wife, Rosalynn, who died Nov. 19, 2023.

It may be instructive to remember what he said in a memorable speech at the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, in the middle of his term as president, in 1978. Carter had been invited to speak as part of National Family Week, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had given him a Family Unity Award, which was a statuette titled “Love at Home.”

According to a transcript available at www.presidency.ucsb.edu, Carter said that, in preparation for his speech, he had pondered the church hymn “Come, Come Ye Saints.”

“I thought about the times of trial in our country, a time when strength was demanded of all of us, a time when we sometimes feel alone. Only a deep faith could let the words of that song, ‘All Is Well,’ ring out,” he said.

“In times when you and your forefathers were persecuted, driven one from another, crossed this land looking for freedom, a chance to worship in your own way, when perhaps you knew that you were about to die, when drought and thirst afflicted you and still the song rang out — ‘All Is Well.’ This is indeed a demonstration of an act of faith and a reaffirmation of hope.

“I come here as president of a great country. And in that same act of faith and in affirmation of hope, I tell you that our nation can say all is well.”

It’s easy to feel the nation’s troubles are far worse now than they were in 1978, but Carter faced intense challenges of his own with inflation and rising interest rates, with a Soviet Union whose threat he was challenging with a new class of nuclear weapons, with unrest in the Middle East and with other foreign threats. Barely a year after that speech, Iranian college students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and began a 444-day hostage crisis that critically wounded Carter’s chance for reelection.

From the world’s point of view, all was not well in the nation. All was not well with the Carter administration. And yet, because of Carter’s faith, he could confidently say, “All is well.”

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Only through faith could a man so important devote his life to tireless, personal service after leaving office.

In that 1978 speech in Salt Lake City, Carter said, “Each person’s sphere of influence need not be great. A father, a mother, a child can change the course of human history, can change the character of a community, a state, or even a nation, if we cling to those things, that should never change.”

Carter’s legacy to his country, which extended far beyond four years in the White House, is that he firmly believed in the power of each individual to change the world, just as he believed in the history and role of the United States as a force for good in the world.

It’s up to each of us, then, to do something about the problems that afflict the nation today — to act as individuals, even in small ways, and to have the faith that, despite our problems, all is well.

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