Don't Punch Your Sister!

When I was a teenage grump, I did something I will never forget; I went into a barbaric frenzy. Why? Well, in my defense, I was provoked, but I guess it was still no excuse. I was about 15 years old and my family and I were skiing up north for the day with some relatives. My little sister, who was about 10 at the time, and our cousin Kaden who was about 9, were all headed down the mountain for our last run. For some reason we began throwing snowballs at one another as we headed down. This exciting game soon escalated into my little sister Jess deciding to hit me with her ski pole. To this day I still don't know exactly why that upset me so, perhaps I was just not in a state of inner-peace in general, but I became unhinged right away. Seeing my playful smile turn rapidly into a face resembling a half starved and rabid wolf, she began to quickly ski down the mountain with me right behind her yelling. Many a helpless onlookers watched us as we headed down, Jessica hopelessly trying to get me off her tail. Eventually, we got to the bottom of the hill and there was literally no where for her to go; she was stuck. I caught up to her and grabbed her pole and began hitting her repeatedly with it with one hand and throwing snow down her back with the other hand. If you ask Kaden about it it still gives him the shivers remembering the awful scene. I took a sibling argument to a whole new level.
The vengeful blood-lust lasted only a minute or two, but the aftermath lasted a lot longer. As I suddenly came to myself I saw my poor kid sister crying in the snow. Immediately I was filled with the most horrible feeling of regret I have ever felt. I could hardly believe what I had done. I began apologizing over and over, helped her up, and of course added "don't tell Mom or Dad!". For weeks I felt guilty even looking over at her. I never wanted to do anything like that to anyone ever again.


Sadly, about three years later, I did. I just got home from basketball practice and I wasn't in the best of moods. Of course, walking in and finding out it was time for Family Home Evening did not improve my sentiments. My mood was drastically darkened when I was then informed that we had a "guest" speaker for FHE; someone here to teach us self-defense. If I had it my way I would have rather had my Dad buy us all some mace or a tazer and called it good, but nonetheless I sat down to participate. After a few minutes of instruction we were put in pairs to practice blocking a punch. Of course I was paired up with Jessica. Not only could she block all my punches, I couldn't block any of her punches. Of course being the older sister by 5 years I was annoyed that she was better at this than I was. My pride set in, and the fact that she began to brag and rub it in only fueled that pride. Before long I lost control and stated "block this!" and punched her as hard as I could. She dropped to the floor in a ball and my mind flashed back to the bottom of that ski hill. Of course I helped her up and said "don't tell Mom and Dad", but the rest of the night I felt awful. It was then that I realized something; if I didn't want to feel that awful feeling of guilt and regret I needed to do something about it. I didn't just need to tell myself not to do that anymore, I needed to change my very being to become someone who didn't even think to do that anymore. In short I didn't need to change my behavior, I needed to change my character.


Now Jessica (above) and I never fight,
because I experienced a "mighty change of heart"

 Now this story may be familiar to some because I always use this story when we teach about repentance. Repentance is often taught as a five step process 1)Recognition of doing something that is not in line with God's teachings 2)Remorse for what you have done 3)Asking for forgiveness from Heavenly Father 4)Restitution or making things right with anyone you harmed in the process 5)Forsaking or never doing it again. A lot of times we get stuck on one of these five steps. Sometimes we are so filled with the remorse step that we sell ourselves short of being able to make lasting change and feel that that is "just how we are and always will be". As a representative of Jesus Christ and His Gospel I testify that that just isn't true. The Atonement of Jesus Christ gives us actual tangible power to overcome any and all weaknesses that we see in ourselves. When we humbly submit ourselves to Him and have Faith that the Atonement can help us and Hope in ourselves that we really can change and that the Atonement really will help us do so than we will experience something far greater than simply a change of behavior; we will experience a "mighty change of heart." This change of heart was experienced by a group of people; and this is what they said about it "Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually." (Mosiah 5:2)
I don't know about you but to me a change of heart sounds much better than a change of behavior. Fighting with ourselves every day to "make" ourselves do what we think we should do can be and is exhausting, frustrating, and discouraging. But if we let truly repent, following all the steps to forsaking, then God will turn that forsaking into a change of heart, and we won't be fighting against ourselves anymore but will become "new creatures"(2 Corinthians 5:17). That is why Christ is the Prince of Peace, through His Atonement we will no longer be fighting ourselves anymore, because we will want to do what is right. And for anyone wondering, to my knowledge, I have not acted in anger or violence to my little sister since that day, and I can honestly say I don't really desire to, ever, because this time, I did more than change my behavior, I turned it over to God so that He could change my heart.
For scriptural accounts about this:
Enos 1:1-8
Alma 23-24 (Alma 24:16-19)
Mosiah chapter 3-5