love your enemies

I just finished typing my mother's pre-mission and Guatemala temple missionary journal 1984-1986. It was typed into three documents so that Word could continue to identify spelling and grammar irregularities. They might be E-mailable.

Stuck into the journal was a letter I wrote to my mother on February 13, 1984 at a time when she was having trouble with a companion who was extremely difficult. As I read it again, I realized that contains advice I need to remember:

Dear Mother,

I've been pondering the conversations we had this morning and wondering what solutions there could be. You have been a great teacher for me throughout my life and I am grateful for the standard of perfection that you have helped me to see. And yet it has been frustrating sometimes, as I have felt my own weaknesses, inexperience, and sometimes the laziness within me that makes me not yet willing to do all that could be done. You have high standards for people and even higher standards for yourself. -- but there is a little piece missing from the puzzle sometimes, and I'd like to help teach you that little piece,-- it might seem nervy of me, since it was you that taught me the whole puzzle. But here goes.

I believe that there is a kind of love that Jesus tried to teach the world, that is a hard kind to practice, but that is the only way to peace. You haven't been totally at peace with yourself or anyone else. Because you first need to love your enemies and be good to those who hate you and dispitefully use you--even if you could be justified in showing anger. You get angry at yourself, and angry at the people who neglect you or treat you unfairly. But that anger is a decision that you make in the sense that you allow yourself to become angry--you choose your response even though it is a natural one, and justified "in the eyes of the world."

I have found thqt when Ken criticizes me, even if I am wrong, it hurts me. If I take or ruin something of his and he gets angry, I feel that that thing he is angry about is more imprtant to him than my feelings. Principles are important, but people are more important. Long suffering is really long and it is really suffering. I have a great desire to be able to live with the people I love, in the manner that Jesus taught. The enemies that irritate us are within our own families. And they usually already know what they have done wrong. Honest anger is honest, but it hurts. Adults don't like to be treated like children. In fact, I've found that even children don't like to be treated like children. We need to forgive 70 times 7. We need to not let our emotional reactions to life hurt the people we love. Sometimes when we think we are teaching someone a lesson, we are only teaching them that we don't think they are very good people. And none of the lessons we could teach would be worth the hurt and the resentment and the disharmony that would result. Contention is of the devil, even if we feel we are in the right.

I love you and I love my brothers and sisters. I want us to be able to show that love even when we are imperfect. Realize the great woman that you are, and love her, and help her calm down and love the people around her. We all have patterns that are hard to change. Some of them are good patterns, most of them in fact, but there are other ones that keep us from feeling the love of Christ in our hearts and in our homes. And so we need to forgive each other and ourselves.

We can't do it without the Lord's help--without his spirit.

Love
Jane