One day, I found a bottle of drinking yogurt in the refrigerator. I had bought a pack of yogurt while ago and thought I had finished the whole pack, but one was left hidden deep in the refrigerator. It had already expired, but I didn’t feel like throwing it away and wasting it. Yogurt is a fermented food anyway. So, I thought it would be okay.
When I was about to drink it, my daughter walked into the kitchen.
“Mom, we have yogurt? Can I have some, please?”
“No. It’s already expired. You’re going to have a stomachache.”
“Then why do you still have it? Throw it away.”
“I . . . I was going to.”
“Mom, don’t drink it. Don’t think it’s wasting. Just throw it away.”
She told me to throw it away in a serious voice, and drank a glass of water and went back to her room. After I made sure she was gone, I hurriedly drank the yogurt. She told me to throw it away, but I didn’t want to waste it. Finally, I drank to the last drop of it, thinking that my strong stomach would take care of it once it entered my body. Everything was fine until I finished all my housework and got ready to go to sleep. However, my stomach began to rumble and make a thunderous sound. My husband woke up at the sound.
“What’s that sound?”
I held my stomach tight and told him about the yogurt I had. Then he clicked his tongue and scolded me,
“Why did you drink it? You think everything’s all right just because they look fine?”
As time passed, my stomachache became severe; it became harder to endure the pain. Going to the bathroom several times all night long, I couldn’t sleep at all. My husband couldn’t sleep, either, giving me medicine and taking care of me. I barely managed to get up in the morning and sat in front of the mirror. My face looked pale, and I got dark circles under my eyes. I tried to prepare breakfast for my children, but I couldn’t do anything with my hands shaking. My husband told me to take a day to rest and left for work, looking tired, without having breakfast.
Even after my husband and my children left, I felt pain in the stomach for quite a while, and finally felt better after getting a shot at the hospital. I felt ashamed of myself for drinking that one little bottle of yogurt which was not worth trying.
I often did the same thing spiritually. ‘It will be okay. Nothing will happen!’ Thinking that way, I didn’t throw away the things that I should’ve gotten rid of, and often hurt my soul with them.
Just as I must not ignore the food expiration date for my health, I must not take God’s word lightly for the health of my soul. From now on, I will avoid whatever is bad or harmful for my soul. I don’t want to suffer unnecessary pain because of my carelessness and foolishness. If I’m sick, Heavenly Mother worries about me. I want to take even a little bit of load off Mother’s mind.