Our Relief Society lesson today was based on President Hinckley's talk from the last conference about anger. One scripture that the teacher shared has stayed with me. It's Proverbs 27:4, "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous." You know most of the stories we hear about people doing crazy things are done when they are angry. Road rage or crazy parents on the sidelines of their kids ball games. Those are outrageous actions.
Unfortunately, my own conscience was pricked this morning. Well, it was pricked yesterday when I was outrageous, but I was reminded of it today. I had asked Nate to touch up a little paint in our living room where a picture had fallen and scratched the wall a little bit. So he did it, and I was grateful, and then I looked at it, and then I acted outrageously. They were small knicks that could have been touched up just using the tip of a brush or even a finger, but he had used a whole brush stroke to cover it up and the paint was drying a different color than the rest of the wall. So I said not very nicely, "Nate, you might as well bring the whole can of paint back in here because you have to paint the whole wall now. This is going to be awful when it dries." My husband said not one word. He got a wet rag and came in and started rubbing off all the extra new paint which hadn't completely dried yet. He was so calm and came up with such a simple solution. I felt so sheepish. Maybe if I hadn't been upset I could have thought of a good solution, too. If nothing else, I certainly didn't need to make him feel bad for doing something for me. He made me think of another scripture. Proverbs 15:1 "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger." His response showed me how ridiculous mine had been, and I wasn't angry anymore. I just felt sorry for acting so outrageously. I'm glad he is so calm and quick to forgive, and I'm looking forward to us having many more years together for him to keep teaching me how to behave.
I actually think of myself as a pretty calm and easygoing person, but I realized in church this morning that this really was a good message even for me. I may not fly off the handle very much but we all have times where things annoy us, and we have the choice to act in anger or not.
3 comments:
That's interesting because our lesson today was on the same thing and so was my mom's. There must be a lot of us in the same boat as what you expressed. Our teacher did such a great job. I think the best thing I got out of our lesson was ways I could calm myself down when I got angry. So many of our sisters shared neat insights into how they overcame anger. It really made me want to do better. I feel a lot like you--I don't fly off the handle all the time, but there are certain situations where I allow anger to by my guide for how I react or behave. I certainly have room for improvement and who better to show the way than President Hinckley!!!
I'll have to read that talk. I don't remember it very well. I really missed RS yesterday. We will only have Sacrament for the next week or two until all the teachers and presidencies are called. Thank goodness I didn't get called into a presidency yesterday! I want another "easy" calling again!
Kellee, I don't know why you think choir director is an easy calling. Maybe if people would come and sing it could be enjoyable, but nobody in our ward wants to come. No one wants to stay after church, no one wants to come early before midweek activities, no one wants to come out if there is no other reason to drive to the church than just choir practice. Ugh. Anyway, I'm done with my rant. Maybe I didn't get enough out of President Hinckley's talk yet. =) You deserve an easy calling right now with everything else you are doing. You are really amazing.
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