The Painful Truth

One of our goals as an organization is to encourage our membership to look deeply at themselves.  Effective leadership of others must always begin with effective leadership of ourselves.  We all have faults, but some of them aren't quite as visible to us, as they are to others.  Sometimes, our family is the most accurate mirror of our own leadership deficits.   As we seek to understand and acknowledge our personal challenges, we must often do as Elder Boyd K. Packer counseled: "Face the painful truth."

"We have no desire to touch the subject that causes you so much pain, nor condemn you as a failure. . . .But some of you are failing, and. . . .If failure it to end, one must face squarely problems . . .however much it hurts. . .

Face the Painful Truth

Parents, can we first consider the most painful part of your problem?  If you want to reclaim your son or daughter, why don't you leave off trying to alter your child just for a little while and concentrate on yourself.  The changes must begin with you, not with your children.

You can't continue to do what you  have been doing (even though you thought it was right) and expect to unproduce some behavior in your child, when your conduct was one of the things that produced it.

There! It's been said!  After all the evading, all the concern for wayward children. After all the blaming of others, the care to be gentle with parents.  It's out!  It's you, not the child, who needs immediate attention.

Now, parents, there is substantial help for you if you will accept it.  I add with emphasis that the help we propose is not easy, for the measures are equal to the seriousness of your problem.  There is no patent medicine to effect an immediate cure.

And parents, if you seek for a cure that ignores faith and religious doctrine, you look for a cure where it never will be found.  When we talk of religious principles and doctrines and quote scripture, interestingly, isn't it , how many don't feel comfortable with talk like that?  But when we talk about your problems with your family and offer a solution, then your interest is intense.

Know that you can't talk about one without talking about the other and expect to solve your problems.  Once parents know that there is a God and we are His children, they can face problems like this and win.

If you are helpless, He is not.

If you are lost, He is not.

If you don't know what to do next, He knows.

 It would take a miracle, you say? Well, if it takes a miracle, why not. . . .

Parents, I desire to inspire you with hope.  You who have heartache, you must never give up.  No matter how dark it gets or no matter how far away or how far down your son or daughter has fallen, you must never give up. Never, never, never." ( Boyd K. Packer. That All May Be Edified. Bookcraft. 1982. pgs. 138-9, 142-3).