Hello Friends of Zion!
I hope this email finds you well as we embrace fall temperatures this week. I’ve been spending the majority of my time caring for Caleb lately. When I find myself in quiet moments of caring for him, I’ve been listening to the novel Little Women. The March family (who make up most of the main characters) often amuses and inspires me in the life lessons portrayed in the fiction novel. Marmee, the mother, is particularly insightful as a very virtuous, captivating person. I’ll share her insights from one part of the novel.
In one particular portion of the novel, Jo, the second born girl, has lost her temper for the umpteenth time, this time severely. I’ll give a bare bones summary here for the sake of brevity, and I’ll try not to give too much away for anyone who hasn’t read the novel or seen the movie. Jo provokes her youngest sister, Amy. In retaliation, Amy ruins Jo’s most beloved possession. Jo responds with crushing words and says she’ll never forgive Amy. Jo stays true to her word by giving Amy the cold shoulder, essentially pretending Amy doesn’t exist. But one day Amy nearly dies because of Jo’s neglect. After this event, Jo repents, forgives Amy, and laments to her mother her fault of being so quick tempered.
In the scene that unfolds when Jo talks to her mother (“Marmee”), Jo expresses guilt, regret, and hopelessness about the fact that she lets her temper get the best of her too often. Marmee’s response shocks Jo in the dialogue that follows:
Marmee: “‘Jo, dear, we all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them. You think your temper is the worst in the world, but mine used to be just like it.”
“Yours, Mother? Why, you are never angry!” And for the moment Jo forgot remorse in surprise.
“I’ve been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.”
The patience and the humility of the face she loved so well was a better lesson to Jo than the wisest lecture, the sharpest reproof. She felt comforted at once by the sympathy and confidence given her. The knowledge that her mother had a fault like hers, and tried to mend it, made her own easier to bear and strengthened her resolution to cure it, though forty years seemed rather a long time to watch and pray to a girl of fifteen.”
I loved this scene when I read it for several reasons. There’s power in admitting a fault, as we see Jo learns and grows just through admitting her struggle. Faults can be our biggest teacher and our greatest way of humbly connecting with others. I know I’ve held my students’ attention captive most when I’ve told them stories, often about my own silly or serious blunders or faults. I remember what my coaches said best in the moments when we suffered defeat or breakdown. As Marmee testifies, we can learn to control our faults with God’s help, and we can hope in God to cure our faults someday or in eternity.
I pray that we can live out what Marmee teaches here, being quick to admit our faults as we are renewed in Christ day by day.
Erica Dienner
P.S. Here’s a bonus quote from Marmee: “The more you love and trust [your Heavenly Father], the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother.”