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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
disturbed. Notwithstanding this you should not yield the point; you
should educate your stomach to bear a more solid diet. You have worn
too great an amount of clothing and have debilitated the skin by so
doing. You have not given your body a chance to breathe. The pores
of the skin, or little mouths through which the body breathes, have
become closed, and the system has been filled with impurities.
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Your habit of riding out in the open air and sunshine has been very
beneficial. Your life out of doors has sustained you so that you have
the measure of physical strength that you now enjoy. But you have
neglected other exercise which was even more essential than this. You
have depended upon your carriage to go even a short distance. You
have thought that if you walked even a little way it would injure you,
and you have felt weary in doing so. But in this your experience is not
reliable.
The same power of motion which you exercise in getting in and
out of a carriage, and in going up and down stairs, could just as well
be exercised in walking and in performing the ordinary and necessary
duties of life. You have been very helpless in regard to domestic
duties. You have not felt that you could have the care of your husband’s
clothes or of his food. Now, my sister, this inability exists more in your
imagination than in your inability to perform. You think it will weary
and tax you to do this and that; and it does. But you have strength that
if put to a practical and economical use would accomplish much good
and make you far more useful and happy. You have so great a dread of
becoming helpless that you do not exercise the strength with which the
Lord has blessed you. In many things you have helped your husband.
At the same time you have taxed his patience and strength. When he
has thought that you could change some of your habits and improve,
you have felt that he did not understand your case. Your friends have
felt that you might be more useful in your home and not so helpless.
This has grieved you. You thought they did not understand. Some have
unwisely pressed their opinion of your case upon you, and this, too,
has grieved you. You have felt that God, in answer to prayer, would
help you, and you have many times been helped in this way. But
you have not gained that physical strength which it was your privilege
to enjoy, because you have not performed your part. You have not
worked in full union with the Spirit of God.
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