Beware of Pride

I spent the last couple of days reading, and re-reading this article that my Missionary daughter Ashley had given me to read on Pride. My heart has been so heavy these last few years and more so since I've had no contact with my family.

Sometimes it is as if she knows my heart and soul better than I do. I've been struggling these last couple of years with the death of my father. Then the loss of my sisters and brothers, no they did not pass away, they had told me to not contact them ever again.

Let me explain a little more in depth. When my Dad was alive our family always flocked to the home where we were raised. Nothing was better than spending time with Mom and Dad. It was the weekend family meeting place, and Dad was the glue that kept our family together.

Through good or bad times, dad was always the man with answers, and if he didn't have the answers there was an amazing comfort that he would always offer. Dad and Mom made going back home to visit a loving place. Their home was a soft place to land.

Being the youngest girl, I had a special bond with my father and mother.
In 1999 Dad was diagnosed with Cancer. When the doctors found out he was in stage 4 already.

It was hard on me because about 4 years earlier I moved to Southern Utah.
I drove down every single weekend for eight months while Dad was sick. He only lived for that eight months, and during that time my Mother, who was like a Saint, waited hand and foot on dad until his last days.

After dad passed Mom got out of the house because she could no longer live there, and there were too many memories of the man she loved for almost 50 years.
She lived in the Clinton area for awhile, and then one day she asked me if she could come live with my family in St. George. I was only too happy to have her, and we spent all waking moment together.

Then my brother, John, moved down and they suddenly became room mates.
That is when contention with my family went from bad to worse.
This is when the jealousy and family fights started.

I was blamed for bringing my Mom down to St. George. I did bring her, but she asked me to. Fighting and bickering began happening with the family that lived up north toward Salt Lake.
All the fighting with my family cause me grief to a point where I became physically ill.

The last time I had spoken to my family was before my nieces wedding. It has been three years, or more since I have spoken to any of my brothers or sister.

Quoted from Ensign Article,
Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 4
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"Most of us think of pride as self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance, or haughtiness. All of these are elements of the sin, but the heart, or core, is still missing.

The proud make every man their adversary by pitting their intellects, opinions, works, wealth, talents, or any other worldly measuring device against others. In the words of C. S. Lewis: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” (Mere Christianity, New York: Macmillan, 1952, pp. 109–10.)

I know that I have been guilty of being prideful, and I promise that I'm not boastful or conceited. But I have, in sense, made my family my adversary, or they have made me their adversary.

I know the hatred won't go away until we all realize we are family. What disservice are we doing to our mother by not allowing each other be together.

I have tried to reconcile and remedy the situation, but I was told that I am taboo.