Slow to Anger

My thoughts on President Hinckley's talk "Slow to Anger"

Slow to Anger is so not Doreen!!!
I need to, no I have to change! I really do!!! I grew up in a house where things were kept bottled up until blow up time. I don’t even keep them bottled up very long and I just explode. This is so very wrong and I need so much to repent and change my ways. I truly wish I could have seen this talk. I wish I could have seen Pres. Hinckley’s face. This is his last address to the Priesthood Brethren. And yet, I’m the one in our family who needs it. My husband has the patience of Job with me.

I just read Pres. Benson’s talk “Beware of Pride” for a lesson I’m teaching on 2 Nephi 16-18 and it went hand in hand with this talk. I think maybe I need to read both talks each week for the next little bit until they become engrained in my brain and in my heart.

I don’t know much about divorce or statistics, but I believe it when he says that divorce is often the bitter fruit of anger. If you add Pres. Benson’s Pride talk, you have probably the reason for most of the divorces in the world: Pride and Anger. I know those two things contributed to my parents’ divorce. (All the children had left the home when they divorced.) Pride and Anger make us do stupid and sometimes damning things.

“… little inconsequential activities lead to criticism. Little flaws are magnified into great torrents of faultfinding; they fall apart, they separate, and then with rancor and bitterness they divorce.”

Some of us don’t let it get that far, but how many of us are at the “great torrents of faultfinding”?

“So many of us make a great fuss of matters of small consequence. We are so easily offended. Happy is the man who can brush aside the offending remarks of another and go on his way.”
Didn’t Elder Bednar speak about offences?
I have a son who makes mountains out of ant hills. It is so frustrating to be around him. I wonder how my husband puts up with me, as this son is so much like me.
We then hold grudges. How many times do we get to a point where we can’t even remember why we are angry, we just continue down the path we are on because it is easier than repenting and moving to a different path.

I need to adopt the gentleman’s rule about quarrels. “’When my wife and I were married we determined that if we ever got in a quarrel one of us would leave the house. I attribute my longevity to the fact that I have breathed good fresh air throughout my married life.”
Most of the time, I have found that time and distance helps me diffuse the situation and let the anger I feel dissipate.

I will have to take his challenge:“I plead with you to control your tempers, to put a smile upon your faces, which will erase anger; speak out with words of love and peace, appreciation and respect. If you will do this your lives will be without regret. Your marriages and family relationships will be preserved. You will be much happier. You will do greater good. You will feel a sense of peace that will be wonderful.”
And who better to say these words than a man who was faithful, completely faithful, to his family for 67 years! Who loved his wife like few men do, a man who knows how to control anger, have humor, have faith, have fun and have love in his life for so long. Unlike many we can’t say, “Physician heal thyself.” Oh, no! We just “Follow him!”