sometimes mom actually does know best

When my dad first broke his hip several years ago and I started making trips to Texas to help out my mother and sister, things were sometimes pretty rocky.
My dad was a roller coaster, things set him off and he would get really hateful and mean to everyone. He would do the opposite of whatever you would try to get him to do, no matter what it was.
My sister and I would react in kind, well meaning and trying to stand up for ourselves and protect our Mother who was the brunt of his nastiness alot.
Over time, we learned that alot of his intense mood swings were caused by medications, coupled with his natural tendency to be intensely independent and being frustrated at the total loss of everything that he felt made him a man.
As time went on and we finally got a doctor who took him off of all of the absolutely non essential medications, the roller coaster slowed and the mood swings lessened. We were still reacting and coming back at him when he got tacky and but it just wasn't happening as often.
Our mother kept telling us to just let it go and to stop trying to reason with him. Of course we thought she was wrong and kept doing what we were doing which meant when he had one of his outbursts, it lasted for days. It was really draining on everyone.
My sister is the one who has the patience and she kept trying new things and one day it just clicked. She tryed to get him to do something and he started yelling and cussing and getting really worked up. She kept her cool, told him she was sorry he was upset but she wasn't going to argue with him about it and walked away. Within minutes he calmed down and they simply picked up from there and he was fine the rest of the day. This happened several times and each time if she could keep herself calm and let it go, he would respond almost immediately and most of the time would end up doing whatever it was she needed him to do. There was still some times when he would go off and stay mad but they became less and less as time on.
My sister and I talked about it and realized if we had really listened to our mother early on instead of being so sure we were right, we could have avoided alot of really ugly situations.
Luckily, we did find out that she was right and changed what we did and everyone gained instead of losing.
We have learned alot from our Mother, especially when we really listen instead of being so sure we knew what is needed.

Life is alot like the situation with our dad. We go about so sure we know what is best or right for us or others and really don't listen to what others are saying. Because we aren't listening we end up missing out on so much.

How much could we gain from really listening and actually trying things?

I am sure Heavenly FAther feels that way with us. He trys to tell us things that we need to hear but we are so caught up in only hearing what we want to hear that we can actually block out the very things that we need to hear the most.