Today's Favorite Verse: Hebrews 3:8

Today's favorite verse: Hebrews 3:8

"Harden not your hearts, as in provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:"

I am amazed how many times things from my day go along with what I then read in the scriptures. By "coincidence" it happened again tonight. I've been away from home most of the week for a genealogy conference. So laundry was backed up. I also ended up hurting my arm earlier this evening. It's that bad rotator cuff pain. I have a family member that starts laundry and then doesn't finish it. Over several hours I asked three times for them to finish it. I needed to wash some clothes. They didn't, so I reached in to take their wet clothes out so I could put mine in and boy did my arm hurt. I don't do well when I am in pain. This is the one area of my life I really have to work on. I can get mean when I am in pain. 

I went to this family member and told them their wet clothes were now on top of the dryer because I couldn't reach into the dryer to take their clothes out and put the wet ones in. I had hurt my arm. I then went to my computer room to sit and read my scriptures. I hadn't turned my fan on because it hurt to reach it so I called out to this family member when I heard them getting their laundry to ask them to please turn my fan on. I was told "No I don't respond to whine." Oh, that hurt my feelings and made me mad. Not a month ago I dropped everything to help them when they hurt their knee and nursed them the best I could. I wanted to point that out, tell them how ungrateful they were. In fact I sat for several minutes running through my head all the things I could tell them on how uncaring, mean and hurtful they were. I thought it but I never said any of it. I held my tongue.

I got up turned on my fan, cried a little over the pain and my hurt feelings. Continued to get madder and madder at this family member running through my head all the things I would have loved to say to them. Then I tried to read my scriptures. I read the chapter twice and nothing stuck out to me. Thinking wow, this chapter just wasn't very interesting. How am I ever going to pick a favorite verse? That just never happens to me.

Before my third pass I set my scriptures aside and thought about my evening. While reading the scriptures I was no longer thinking of hurtful things I wanted to say to a family member. I was cooling down over my perceived offense. Then I decided I better start my scripture reading over again. I said another prayer since my earlier one was before all this trouble began. I prayed to be forgiven for my thoughts towards this family member and to have the spirit. Then I read and found this verse on not hardening my heart. That is exactly what I just went through. 

When my heart is harden towards another the spirit leaves. The darkness inside just builds out of control if I don't put it in check. I also see the power of the scriptures to put things back in check. It may have taken several readings and then sincere prayer once I realized what was wrong. But, now I have a different heart over the matter and see the offense was nothing deserving all that internal energy. Now that I am back to my normal self I even see the personal growth I just made. My normal response to pain and how I take it out in others didn't happen. My family member has no idea what I thinking, since I experienced growth in holding my tongue. If I had spoken words in anger the whole house would have had a different feeling and the peace surrounding me would have taken so much more to bring back. What a powerful experience I just went through. What a gift the scriptures are.

Day 125 Tami Fitzgerald Harris