Training the Heart

Lately, I feel like a vessel into which the Lord is pouring so much knowledge that there is not room enough to receive it! (I recently began the Teaching Self-Government Implementation Course.)

I am beginning to see myself in a whole new light. I am seeing how very much of myself is flawed! I mean I've always known, of course, that I need to improve, but I feel as though things I have been blinded to my entire life are being revealed to me.

Today, I was reading a lift-the-flap book to little Hack and James came to join us. James reached for some of the same flaps his brother reached for and of course, being older and faster, got there first. Sometimes they tied. I corrected him and told him not to open the one that Hack was already trying to open and reassured him that he would get a turn again soon. He obediently stopped trying. My old self would have stopped there. I had addressed the older child's (selfish) desire and placated it. I think I have always just soothed the selfishness of my children just enough for them to be able to keep it at bay until they could have what they wanted.

However, lately I have been learning about taking steps as a parent to deliberately teach charitable responses to my children. I want to teach them not only to control the selfish desire, but to foster a desire to make the other person happy or to serve them in some way. So, a new thought occurred to me, and I said, “James, if he is reaching for one, you should be nice and stop and let him open it.” I've also been deliberately pointing out how happy Hack feels when he is enjoying something and how happy that can make us feel if we notice it and help him to enjoy it even more.

Something similar happened earlier in the day when Jesstyn was giving a “no answer” to James because he wanted to race at folding the towels and she didn't really want to. Before, I would have just given her a disapproving look, like “Come on, be nice.” This time I quietly told her that when a little person wants to race and you don't want to, it's a great opportunity to have fun with him because you say, 'okay' and then (I whispered) let him win!

So far the kids are responding well to the encouragement to not only be friends with each other, but truly act selflessly toward one another. It turns out they really like having a peaceful, loving feeling in our home. They are coming to understand that they can choose this.

I am also trying to retrain my own heart to be more selfless. It is one of my goals this year to foster more family unity than ever. Doing so will mean helping my entire family to retrain their hearts because unfortunately, as I am coming to realize, we have many selfish, even manipulative behaviors. They are deeply ingrained habits that are so commonplace and even socially accepted that normally, we hardly even suspect they might be wrong. (sighing, eye-rolling, not speaking up to proactively ask for help and then making some snide comment later, getting defensive, interrupting, beginning to talk to someone before I am even in the same room with them and then realizing they should not have been interrupted). Somehow, our hearts have become desensitized to these hurtful behaviors.

As I continue to learn from Nicholeen Peck, though, I feel as though scales are beginning to fall from my eyes; any ice in my heart is beginning to melt and I am experiencing the light and warmth of relationships that can fill my life with joy if I focus on them instead of me.

There is so much that I wish I could share with others. I wish I could explain it all. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” This is so true. I am working on being the change for now. I hope to find a way to articulate it to the world along the way. I am so grateful for how the Lord is teaching me. I know that He will lead and guide us if we pray and seek Him, especially with regard to our families.