General Conference Bulletin, vol. 4

WHEN THE HEART IS HEAVY

Worry kills. It wears upon the brain as dropping water wears away stone. The habit must be killed by eternal vigilance, resolution, and good sense. Worry, like bad air or an obnoxious person, must be driven out; and the best way to drive either out is by the introduction of the good. You can fill your mind with comforting, calming thoughts, leaving no room for harassing ones. You can flood out the enemy, just as by pouring a stream of clear water into a tumbler filled with discolored liquid, you can soon force out the muddy contents of the glass, and leave it filled with liquid crystal. GCB April 10, 1901, page 172.4

Check expression when bitter or somber feeling has the best of you. To say how sad or perplexed you feel when your heart sinks for the moment, deepens your inward trouble, and at the same time spreads it to outside people. You would not spread disease; do not spread mental distress. Your desponding words, bursting impulsively from a full heart in the presence of a friend, add to the burdens of another human being,—one, perhaps, already weighed down with cares and anxieties. So to speak is to allow yourself to be overborne by “things,” ruled by the natural course of the world. You can not rule the world, it is true; but you have the power to rule your part of it—that is, yourself. GCB April 10, 1901, page 172.5

Don’t hate, and don’t worry. This is the advice given by a hale and beneficent old man to those who asked him for the secret of length of days. He might have added, Don’t get angry,—Ada C. Sweet, in Woman’s Home Companion. GCB April 10, 1901, page 172.6

“Blessed are they that keep judgment.” GCB April 10, 1901, page 172.7