Hubris--not to be confused with hummus

I am really not a big fan of either of these! Although my husband loves hummus. Just saying.

These paragraphs from Percy Jackson and the Olympians (book 2) “The Sea Monsters” really come from somewhere after the beginning of this story, so let me catch you up.

A funny thing has been happening to me and just this morning, it came full circle. I know the journey is not over and I will many more circles in my future. But today there was something special about how it all came together and I want to get it out of my head and on paper. So I can remember it and continue to learn from it and so can my posterity—hopefully!

A few days ago, actually more like a few weeks ago I read Elder Uchtdorf’s talk in general conference “Pride in the Priesthood”. It was answer to prayer. I read it and just felt my need for it. It reminded me so much of President Benson’s talk on pride—and how much I knew I needed that one too. An interesting side note, well I think it is interesting, is that I had a conversation with a friend and what she remembered about that talk was that he said it was ok to put “proud” back in our vocabulary. And when she said that I thought, well, she obviously didn’t NEED to hear about pride like I did. It just confirmed to me that it truly was an answer for me.

So back to me…just kidding. You know, I am writing about pride so if I make a joke…never mind.

I decided right then and there that I would stop trying to be in denial about my pride issues. Hello. My name is Danette and I am prideful. I hate thinking it, but it is true.

My first decision was that I would make studying about pride a part of my scripture study. AND I asked the Lord for help in recognizing  when I was being prideful, which really came to mean “reacting in pride”, for me.

Whoa!

I wasn’t prepared for the things that came to mind. For the MANY opportunities the Lord gave me to clearly see all the work that needed to be done! (ha!)Sometimes I saw it ahead of time like coming to door and I was able to just not go in. I had time to say to myself “don’t react in pride” and I would make a better choice. Other times I saw it after I walked right through and the door shut behind me and I had to ask for forgiveness.

And all that is still a work in progress. I am trying to just be more…careful. And using Elder Scott’s words: “we become what we want to be by being what we want to become each day”.

So what does Percy Jackson have to do with all this? Well, several days after Elder Uchtdorf’s words, I read those above paragraphs and thought. Uh oh.