Lesson for the New Year

I hate New Year's Resolutions, but I find nothing wrong with wanting to be better, and setting realistic goals with a plan in mind. One of my major goals this year is to be more understanding. As I have changed so drastically (at least in my perspective) in the past 1-2 months I have found a resistance to my improvements. While I see a completely new me, others can't get past the old model--they can't see who I really am, who I've become. THIS FRUSTRATES THE HECK OUT OF ME! After my initial frustration however, I realize that I too fall prey to judgment, and I feel ashamed. This year I hope to find charity for all and work to better understand and love.

Remember Lot's Wife

Jeffrey R. Holland

January 13, 2009

I can’t tell you the number of couples I have counseled who, when they are deeply hurt or even just deeply stressed, reach farther and farther into the past to find yet a bigger brick to throw through the window “pain” of their marriage. When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go back and open up some ancient wound that the Son of God Himself died trying to heal.
Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. Don’t keep going back with your little sand pail and beach shovel to dig it up, wave it around, and then throw it at someone, saying, “Hey! Do you remember this?” Splat!
Well, guess what? That is probably going to result in some ugly morsel being dug up out of your landfill with the reply, “Yeah, I remember it. Do you remember this?” Splat.
And soon enough everyone comes out of that exchange dirty and muddy and unhappy and hurt, when what God, our Father in Heaven, pleads for is cleanliness and kindness and happiness and healing.
Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is worse than Miniver Cheevy, and in some ways worse than Lot’s wife, because at least there he and she were only destroying themselves. In these cases of marriage and family and wards and apartments and neighborhoods, we can end up destroying so many, many others.

Read it:
http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/56453/Elder-Jeffrey-R-Holland-Remember-Lots-wife.html

Listen to it:
http://speeches.byu.edu/download.php/Holland_Jeffrey_012009.mp3