The Family Pot Roast Tradition

TheDiscipleMD

There is a old story told about a young woman who, in fixing her first Sunday dinner for her new husband, cut the ends off of a pot roast, and threw the perfectly good meat into the garbage. Her husband asked her why she was throwing the good meat away.

She stared at him for a minute, and then shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know. It’s something my mother always did.”

Her husband scratched his head and said it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense to him.

So the young lady made a call to her mother. Her mother said, “I don’t know, honey. I always cut the ends off because I saw my mother do it.”

So then a call was placed to grandma, who was able to clarify things. “Sweetie, your mother saw me cut off the ends of a pot roast one Sunday because it was too big to fit in the roasting pan. I had to cut those ends off just because it wouldn’t have otherwise fit. I had no idea she was even watching me!”

“Well, Grandma,” the young woman said, “Mom has tossed out a lot of good meat through the years. But we won’t do it anymore!”

Lorenzo Snow once made a beautiful observation about the influence of our example:

You exert a certain degree of influence, and be it ever so small, it affects some person or persons, and for the results of the influence you exert you are held accountable. You, therefore, whether you acknowledge it or not, have assumed an importance before God and man that cannot be overlooked. (Journal of Discourses, 18:299.)

People do watch what we do and listen to what we say. They also draw conclusions from our actions regarding our family, our faith and our character. May we always remember to honor our family name and most importantly our membership in the church of Christ. May we also remember to be slow to judge others as we often do not know the facts regarding the examples they have been given during their lifetime.

The next time we sit down for our with our family for the Sunday Pot Roast, may we be reminded that everything we do and say is influencing others whether we like it or not.

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