Achieving Perfection

I work in Primary.  I love it.  I love being with the children and feeling their spirit and hearing them bear their testimony through song.  Plus my kids are there and I get to be with them and see them participate in the gospel.  It is often the highlight of my week.  Being in Primary, however, means that I don't get to hear the Sunday School and Relief Society lessons.  So in my personal study, I have been reading the Teachings of Presidents of the Church lessons from Lorenzo Snow.

Yesterday, I read the chapter entitled "Becoming Perfect before the Lord: 'A Little Better Day by Day.'"  It was wonderfully encouraging.  The commandment to "be perfect" as Jesus was is certainly daunting, especially as I feel I fall far short in so many areas of my life.  I can pat myself on the back that I am perfect at paying my tithing, but as far as other commandments go, I need work, and lots of it.  President Snow, however, made it seem that perfection is possible.  He said,

Do not expect to become perfect at once.  If you do, you will be disappointed.  Be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today.  The temptations that perhaps partially overcome us today, let them not overcome us so far tomorrow.  Thus continue to be a little better day by day; and do not let your life wear away without accomplishing good to others as well as to ourselves.

I appreciate that President Snow recognizes that temptations will overcome us, and encourages us to not let them "overcome us so far tomorrow."  By being a little better day by day, I can get there.  I have been working hard since the beginning of the year to control my anger towards and impatience with the children.  I have sincerely asked for help from Heavenly Father, I have been searching for ways to better parent, and I have been trying to be more conscious of what sort of spirit I am inviting into our home through my actions.  I feel that I have been helped and blessed in my efforts, and while not perfect, I am getting a little better day by day.  It gives me hope that I can do it.