charity vs pride

I was studying for my lesson yesterday and came across a talk by President Uchtdorf called "In Praise of Those Who Save." He is referring to those who work to save their marriages and families. I am grateful to have a strong marriage with Mike and a happy family life with our children, but I still found lots of things in his talk that were very helpful.

First, President Uchtdorf says that "strong marriage and family relationships ... require constant, intentional work. The doctrine of eternal families must inspire us to dedicate our best efforts to saving and enriching our marriages and families."

And "no matter how flat your relationship may be at the present, if you keep adding pebbles of kindness, compassion, listening, sacrifice, understanding, and selflessness, eventually a mighty pyramid will begin to grow."

So there is always hope! But adding those pebbles is not easy. It requires us to seek charity. President Uchtdorf says. "Whatever problems your family is facing, whatever you must do to solve them, the beginning and the end of the solution is charity, the pure love of Christ. Without this love, even seemingly perfect families struggle. With it, even families with great challenges succeed."

But sometimes charity is really hard to summon, right? Especially when we are in the middle of an argument. Because "the great enemy of charity is pride. Pride is one of the biggest reasons marriages and families struggle. Pride is short-tempered, unkind, and envious. Pride exaggerates its own strength and ignores the virtues of others. Pride is selfish and easily provoked. Pride assumes evil intent where there is none and hides its own weaknesses behind clever excuses. Pride is cynical, pessimistic, angry, and impatient. Indeed, if charity is the pure love of Christ, then pride is the defining characteristic of Satan. Pride my be a common human failing. But it is not part of our spiritual heritage."

When I read that last paragraph, I realized that when Mike and I have a hard day together, it is almost always because of pride. When we are able to overcome a difficulty together, it is because one of us offered the other charity. So here's to charity! And to offering the people who mean the most to us the best of us.


Have a good week! My kids are scrubbing the basement clean of the filth of summer today. :) I'm not particularly looking forward to the start of the school year, but I am looking forward to having a clean house again.