Hello my friend, I hope this finds you well.

I’ve been considering the goal faithful women have of creating a house of peace. But sometimes I don’t know if it’s clear what that means.

We know what it’s not: a peaceful home is not a place of anger and contention. It is not a place of competition and manipulation. It is not an environment of selfishness and pride.

Yet we experience these things and think they are “just part of life!”

We are called to something higher and holier than that kind of life.

We mistakenly think at times that the contention and manipulation and selfishness and pride are the faults and problems of our spouse and children, hence all the parenting books on the shelves! And all the disharmony in marriages!

We know that Jesus, the one we are striving to emulate, never speaks to us as if we are victims! Not victims of the world and not victims of our kids or spouses! He validates by acknowledging, “Ye who are weary and heavy-laden,” but still he doesn’t label us as victims who are “acted upon.”

No, he speaks to us as agents and he pleads with us to stand up in our agency and change things. Not just circumstances, but to change ourselves.

So when is the last time you felt angry at someone in your house? Even yourself?

Or when did you last feel irritated and justified in snapping at your husband or yelling at a child or marinating in self-pity at the realization of your own mistakes?

This is where the problem lies. In us.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all my heart. It is the most empowering message in the world!

In essence Jesus says, hey, if you’re miserable and struggling, take a look in the mirror! “Follow me!”

He says, that with his help, we can completely overcome misery and pain and even death!

But the piece in between knowing we are a mess and becoming the powerful agents He is calling us to be is humility.

We can’t tell the truth without it.

We actually can’t see ourselves as we are and stand it, without His help!

My challenge today is to have the courage to look in the mirror, with the bar of our behavior where the Lord put it: stop being angry, stop running away, stop attacking people, stop thinking and acting like the victim of our story!

It’s a high bar! And sometimes we think we can’t handle it! An we whine about it! And try to keep a clean house and demand better behavior from our kids instead!

But the other piece we often don’t understand is that we can’t reach His bar without Him! He’s not asking us to change alone! (Which is another piece of our pride when we want to do it ourselves, and are deluded enough to try!)

He has the power to change us, but we have to humbly tell the truth first! And over and over again as we break the habit of self-deception and self-justification!

He has the power! And it is His all-consuming love!

Sisters, we can lay down our burden of anger at his feet, accept and feel His love and “bear a song away!”

“Thus we may see that the Lord is merciful unto all who will, in the sincerity of their hearts, call upon his holy name.

“Yea, thus we see that the gate of heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God.

“Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked–

“And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out.

“Nevertheless, they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.” Helaman 3:27-30; 35, The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ.

This is the miracle and spirit of Christ’s birth and mission.

To heal and change us as we humble ourselves before Him and submit to the cure.

Merry Christmas!

May your heart be full of love and joy! And may that be the gift you give your loved ones; a decision to humbly tell the truth, ask for Christ’s power and sanctification, to receive and feel his love and be healed.

Sincerely,