This past Sunday the theme of the remarks in our sacrament meeting was "The Word of Wisdom."
One speaker who is new to the area got up and gave a great talk about the word of wisdom. He included that he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction as a teenager and young twenties and that although that is not longer a struggle for him, he struggles with pornography addiction and still attends the ARP meetings. He even gave a plug for them with the local time and location of the meeting. WHAT! In a congregation full of people he doesn't know but whom he will continue to see as he just moved here, he admitted to being an addict - to having more than one addiction! His delivery of this information and the other thoughts and insights he shared was humble, honest, transparent, and genuine. It wasn't the most profound talk or the most articulate or moving but I was moved simply by his humility. It was SHAME BUSTING! You go dude!
My husband, who has seen this guy at group and knew of his pornography addiction but not the drugs and alcohol, was grinning from ear to ear in happiness at the shame-busting nature of the words being spoken. He (hubs) took notes and said he gleaned a lot of good, applicable insights.
I'm sure there were people in the congregation who weren't pleased with the speaker's candor, but I was. Everyone I spoke to about the talk (about half a dozen people) were all pleased as well and loved his remarks and were refreshed by his honesty. Isn't that so great!
I know there is a long way to go, but little by little the shaming culture can be removed from our lives and replaced with an honest, understanding, genuine culture that knows nobody is perfect and we are all trying.
The talk included a great quote from President Uchtdorf:
"Don't judge me because I sin differently than you" (April 2012 General Conference)
Wow, what courage!
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