Profound

In our ward, I feel like everyone gives pretty great talks. I don't always get to hear all of them, we have a two-year-old after all, but it seems like when I do get a snippet hear or there, it's something I needed. I thank my Heavenly Father for allowing me to be able to listen during those snippets. One of the talks yesterday, struck me to the core.

It was a talk about becoming meek and easily entreated of the Lord, and the speaker quoted this statement by C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity:

“We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected: I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man: it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”

I thought of all the times I've reacted horribly to one of Eli's tantrums, his noisiness, and his whining, or snapped at Aaron . . . one of a million things. I've known I needed to work on my patience BUT to hear it put in that way was what I needed to snap me out of my rationalizing. I hope that I can become more of the woman I want to be as I try to rid myself of the rats in my cellar through coming closer to Christ.