The first thought that came to my mind was, "You give me all of you and I'll give you all of me." That was my dating motto. But I don't really think that's what Family Search had in mind, and I don't really want to rehash old break up stories because I gave that ultimatum, and the only guy willing to accept it and follow through was Gerson.
The second thought that came to my mind was two memes about respect that I saw on facebook that I heavily disagreed with. Both, in summary, sent the message of: "I won't respect you until you respect me." Although I understand, and to an extent agree with the mentality that respect must be earned; I feel like if everyone is waiting for others to show respect first, no one will ever give respect.
So I have recently started working on making sure that I treat everyone around me with respect regardless of how they are treating me, on and offline. Being respectful is a variety of attitudes and characteristics. It's holding my temper when someone makes me angry. It's showing genuine love and care for someone when serving them. It's using kind language when disagreeing with someone. It's accepting someone's different opinion and valuing them as a human being.
In the most recent women's session of conference President Uchtdorf said:
"When someone opposes or disagrees with us, it's tempting to assume that there must be something wrong with them. And from there it's a small step to attach the worst of motives to their words and actions.
Of course, we must always stand for what is right, and there are times when we must raise our voices for that cause. However, when we do so with anger or hate in our hearts - when we lash out at others to hurt, shame, or silence them - chances are we are not doing so in righteousness."
He later goes on to say:
"We are responsible for our own discipleship, and it has little - if anything - to do with the way others treat us. We obviously hope that they will be understanding and charitable in return, but our love for them is dependent of their feelings toward us."
I'm not perfect at being respectful 100% of the time, but I'm working on it and doing much better. I think it would be beneficial for everyone to work on being respectful without the condition of others respecting us first.
No comments:
Post a Comment