The Dougal Times

Kanien was frustrated the other day when I was at her house and then Nathan called and she was talking to him and her frustration was showing in the conversation she was having with him. I felt she could have said what she was saying at a different time when she wasn't quite so frustrated. Nathan hung up the phone but when she called him back I gathered it wasn't intentional and was an accident. He later told her that he said he had to go because his boss was there to talk to him but Kanien didn't hear any of that. When he hung up and while she was dialing to call him back she said "aaahhh our family just doesn't know how to talk things through" and she is right! Now to the point of why I gave that example. In reading scriptures and studying today I was reading over the yw's lesson and came across a talk that President Monson shared in July of 2007 - The Peril of Hidden Wedges. I just want to share a few things from that talk. He says "Sometimes we can take offense so easily. On other occasions we are too stubborn to accept a sincere apology. Let's remove any hidden wedges that can do nothing but destroy. Where do hidden wedges originate? Some come from unresolved disputes which lead to ill feelings, followed by remorse and regret. Others find their beginnings in disappointments, jealousies, arguments, and imagined hurts. We must solve them - lay them to rest and not leave them to canker, fester, and ultimately destroy. " Words by John Greenleaf Whittier "Of all sad words of tongue or pen,/the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"
The Spirit must be freed from tethers so strong and feelings never put to rest so that the lift of life may give buoyancy to the soul. In many families there are hurt feelings and a reluctance to forgive. It doesn't really matter what the issue was. It cannot and should not be left to injure. Blame keeps wounds open. Only forgiveness heals. George Herbert, an early seventeenth-century poet, wrote these lines: "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven."