Sunday, September 11, 2016

"Reproving ... adult family members should be rare indeed"

"What seems to distinguish a successful family is that the members of the family continue to care. They don’t give up. They never quit. They hang together through hardships and death and other problems.
"I know of a close-knit family that is wonderfully successful in keeping everyone together. When the parents feel they are losing influence with teenagers, the help of cousins is enlisted to exert some counter peer pressure.
"I would urge members of extended families—grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins—to reach out in concern, to succor. Mostly what is needed from grandparents, aunts, and uncles is unreserved love manifest as interest and concern. It builds confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. Reproving and chastening adult family members should be rare indeed. We are told that it should happen only when a person is moved upon by the Holy Ghost. But I have been grateful for those in my family who have loved me enough to give me both the gentle and strong reproof on occasion as needed. We read in Proverbs: “He that refuseth reproof erreth” (Proverbs 10:17)."
James E. Faust, second counselor in the First Presidency, "Where Is the Church?," BYU Devotional, 1 March 2005

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