The Importance of Bodies FHE

Continuing our "series" studying the Family Proclamation, we did a fun activity at FHE exploring this section of the Proclamation:

1.     "In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life." 

For this activity, I quickly placed 5 different items for my family to taste in separate bowls.  I used cocoa, baking soda, granulated sugar, garlic powder, and cupcake sprinkles.

Each person was either blind-folded or just closed their eyes, and we took turns tasting the items in the bowls.

We wrote down our guesses and shared them with each other after everyone had a chance to taste what was in all of the bowls.

We then took some time to discuss the activity and how it might relate to the quote above.

I asked them to try to describe how each item tasted to someone who might have never tasted anything before.  We agreed that it would be next to impossible to make someone understand what the various tastes were like if they didn't ever have the opportunity to taste for themselves.  And this is why God mercifully lets his children come to earth and gain experiences in mortal bodies.  It's the only way to understand the world and His plan for us.  It's the only way to become like him.  God himself came to earth to gain a body, and that is why he understands completely what it means to feel pain, what it means to feel temptation.  That is why He can so completely and authentically come to our aid.

I reminded Guy of the time that he had to get a painful but minor surgery on his toe.  It was excruciating.  Surely, before the procedure, he wouldn't have had nearly the same degree of compassion for another person in pain as he has now after that experience.

In fact, we learned from his doctor that while in podiatry school, he and his fellow students were required to practice giving the numbing shot to one another (which is the most painful part) so that the doctors would know the pain felt by their patients.

We wrapped up the evening with another game that I had prepared ahead of time.  

I threw about 15 different household items in a bag--things like a pencil, scissors, a small toy, etc.

We each took turns feeling the items in the bag with our hands and writing down our guesses as to what was in the bag.  It was a fun and easy evening together talking about this part of The Family Proclamation.

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Proud to Be Me FHE

 

I'm semi-diligently working through the Family Proclamation with my kids.  For family home evening this week, we learned about gender.

We actually started FHE off by looking at pictures of our trip to the dinosaur museum (which you can see in the previous post).  One of the exhibits we explored showed how different aspects of the dinosaurs' body was used as armor.

We talked about the purposes of the various parts of the dinosaurs, and then transitioned into the purposes of our bodies and the purposes of boy and girl bodies.

We made a verbal list of things that both boys and girls can do, which was fun and interesting.  I listed things that have typically been considered "male or female" professions or activities and quizzed them as to whether it's something a boy or girl could do.  It was fun to see that boys and girls can do basically any job that the other gender can do.

Since we're big Signing Time fans, we then watched the Signing Time video of their song "I'm proud to be me" which got everyone energized, especially the little ones.

We talked about the purpose of being a boy or a girl and what it means in God's kingdom.  We talked about being grateful for gender and being kind to those who might believe differently than we do about this topic.

Overall, it was a fun FHE that kept the littles involved.

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We Each Belong to and Are Needed in the Family of God

Do you ever find that teaching youth is unpredictable?  For a variety of reasons, I do.  Also, I always go into lesson preparation thinking I am going to teach them something, and most often come away being taught a lesson myself that I didn't know I was due to learn.  Today was no exception.

I have in the past also experienced, especially in Young Women, that lesson time is often sacrificed for announcements and singing of special hymns and get-to-know yous and birthday spotlights.  Today, my first time teaching as the new Beehive Advisor in our ward, was also no exception.

I have to note that the "special hymn" they are learning is "I Walk By Faith," which was a song that I learned as a youth. (How many of you are familiar with this song??)

This made me chuckle, because I know the song so well that I was probably the only one who didn't need a song sheet.  It made me cry too as the words rang true for me, especially lines like, "And some day when God has proven me, I'll see Him face to face, but just for here and now I walk by faith."  

How many times over the last 25 years have I had to walk by faith (especially in my 20's as I made so many important choices for my life!)?  The Lord has certainly proven me, beyond what I could have ever anticipated when I originally sang this song. 

And I know He is proving me still.  Although I haven't literally seen him face-to-face, I have certainly come to know him better through my own personal tests, and trials.  Thinking back on these hard moments, knowing that the Savior walked with me through them, made my eyes water even more. I also cried (and laughed) because those high notes are no easier to reach now than they were back when I sang it as a youth, in case you were wondering!

About the Lesson:

For the lesson, which I taught to the Beehives, we focused on The Family Proclamation. 

There was a lot to cover given that I was told they hadn't had all of the lessons for this month for some reason, also our time together seemed so short.

On the spot, I felt it was important to focus on these few things: 

1) The family is very important to God's eternal plan.

2) Learning & living according to the doctrine taught in the family proclamation can answer our questions and help us form a happier and eternal family.

3) No family is perfect, but we are all part of the family of God.  

4) It is our duty as daughters of God to reach out to and love ALL people regardless of their family circumstances or beliefs.  It is also our duty to learn from and support one another and empathize with others and their struggles and experiences.  We can and should do this while standing by the doctrine of family.

To help us think about this more, we read this quote from Sister Carole M. Stephens, "The Family Is of God.":

She says, "Elder Richard G. Scott explained that “we were taught in the premortal world that our purpose in coming here is to be tested, tried, and stretched.”5 That stretching comes in as many forms as there are individuals experiencing it. I’ve never had to live through divorce, the pain and insecurity that comes from abandonment, or the responsibility associated with being a single mother. I haven’t experienced the death of a child, infertility, or same-gender attraction. I haven’t had to endure abuse, chronic illness, or addiction. These have not been my stretching opportunities.

"So right now some of you are thinking, “Well then, Sister Stephens, you just don’t understand!” And I answer that you may be right. I don’t completely understand your challenges. But through my personal tests and trials—the ones that have brought me to my knees—I have become well acquainted with the One who does understand, He who was “acquainted with grief,”6 who experienced all and understands all. And in addition, I have experienced all of the mortal tests that I just mentioned through the lens of a daughter, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, and friend.

"Our opportunity as covenant-keeping daughters of God is not just to learn from our own challenges; it is to unite in empathy and compassion as we support other members of the family of God in their struggles, as we have covenanted to do.

"When we do so, we also come to understand and trust that the Savior knows the difficulties of the way and can guide us through whatever sorrows and disappointments may come. He is true charity, and His love “endureth forever”7—in part through us as we follow Him.

As daughters of God and disciples of Jesus Christ, we then “act according to those sympathies which God has planted” in our hearts.8 Our sphere of influence isn’t limited to our own family members."

After discussing the first few ideas, we briefly played the Family Proclamation Trivial Pursuit Game (which you can find here).  It's something that I made up years ago, but I didn't even think about it until a blog reader asked me a question about it last night (so thank you, friend!)

Although, we really ran out of time to really play it, it was a good way to get the girls reading, talking about, and sharing with each other about the Family Proclamation, the ideas contained therein, and about their own families.  I think we'll probably play it again for an activity some time in the future.  

I reiterated again at the end of the lesson how important it is for us to love and include people of all different circumstances, family make-up, and background (in and outside of the church) and to go out of our way to help others feel loved, because everyone around us belongs to the family of God.  And how important it is for us all to know and understand and gain a testimony of the Family Proclamation, so we can use it to guide our decisions in life and teach it to others.

So that was it, not too eventful, but I just found it interesting that I was guided to teach showing love for others regardless of their family structure as the biggest point in the brief time that we had.  I think, from the looks on some of the girls faces, this message was comforting for some of them too.

More Thoughts on Inclusion

Speaking of inclusion in church, I haven't recently thought too much in depth about this or considered the plight of someone who might feel like they are on the outside.  If someone is on the fringe, I try to put my arm around them and pull them in, but I'm not sure I've always validated their particular concerns. Perhaps because it feels like someone always has a reason to feel left out.  However, I had a few experiences today that has called my attention to this.

I have always felt like I belonged in church.  In The true Church.  I am not one who has ever questioned whether or not I belonged socially or culturally or doctrinally in the church, but I know people do.

Today, as I was introducing myself to the girls, I asked them to guess where I was from.  Their guess: Utah.  Nope, I said, I'm from Ohio.  I grew up just two hours from here.

Next, I asked them to guess where I went to college.  BYU, they answered.  Nope, I went to a school in Ohio called Miami University (which is also where Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers QB went...we now live in Pittsburgh).  

Then I showed them a picture of the temple I was married in.  Any guesses as to which temple it was?  They guessed the Salt Lake Temple.  Um...no.  It's the Washington, DC temple.

I don't fault them (mainly because I think most of their families are transplants from Utah), but it definitely took me by surprise that the girls could only fathom that I'd be from Utah...Utah all the way, no other guesses.

I am from Ohio.  I have lived in Pennsylvania for 12 years of my married life and all of my children were born here (they also found this shocking).  I consider myself from the East.  My temple has almost always been the DC Temple.  My career was mainly entered on the East Coast, and as I said before, I was educated here.

I started to seriously wonder why their only answers were Utah.  I started to feel very outside...outside of this group of girls anyway.  And I've never really felt that way before.

Later, I had an interaction online which spun wildly away from the main point of the discussion.  This person's point (in my perception) was that there is a homogeneous way to talk about a certain topic in the gospel and that it is basically the same the world over.  When I tried to explain that in my personal experience, I talk about it differently and my fellow ward members might speak differently/use different words and that was ok.  In our discussion, I felt totally dismissed.  I was probably wrong.  He was maybe technically correct.  Probably the whole Mormon world says it one way and only I say it so weirdly different.  But even so, I felt even more on the outside in a discussion of a point that was totally not important.

And being made to feel like an outsider for the second time in one day, it's just not what my fragile little, overly-emotional, pregnant heart needed today.

So, maybe this vague story means nothing to anyone reading this, and I know that other people have much more serious factors causing them to feel like they are on the outside looking in, but it made me think more seriously about trying to use my words to include people at church.  

For whatever reason, there are certainly many people who don't feel like they belong, don't feel like they are in the club, don't feel like their life matches the shiny, happy, outer coating that we might perceive is on display each week.  And while I want to think I have always tried to include others, these silly examples make me think I can do better, go even more out of my way to show that I love and accept others just as they are.  (I could probably also practice this more with my own children~)

This is certainly a strength I have witnessed in and admire about others in the church.

I'm hoping I can work harder starting now to make sure everyone feels like they belong...at least when they are around me.

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This is the House that Faith Built

Things are really coming along with the house.  I enjoy driving by (at least) daily and noting the progress.  I was excited to see the siding go up last week, and now the stone and soon brick.

But there was something that I wanted to be sure to do before the drywall was installed. I wanted a piece of us to be a part of the contruction of the house, so one night last week, we snuck in and wrote our names on the wall studs and slipped family photos and a copy of the Family Proclamation into the insulation!

 

It was just a silly thing, but it was our silly thing, and it was fun to do as a family.  This move has made it really hard to do our regular adventures in gospel learning at home, but I'm looking forward to resuming that in our new house...and building a house built on faith in Jesus Christ!  With his help and hard work...we will!

In what ways have you tried to make faith and the gospel and cornerstone of your home?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

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#PhillyLDSTemple Cultural Celebration

Our family really enjoyed seeing the cultural celebration of the Philadelphia Temple last night.  It was our first time attending such an event, so we really didn't know what to expect. 

Our family accidently ended up sitting on the backside of the stage so it was difficult for me to get pictures of all of the amazing things represented in the program, which included William Penn who founded Pennsylvania as a place to worship God, the founding of the United States, the making of the Flag, George Washington at Valley Forge, Benjamin Franklin's innovations, the Restoration of the Priesthood and much more.  But we were able to partake of the spirit and see our young friends perform and share testimony, and that's what matters most.

On the way to the arena at Temple University, our GPS took us through some of the hardest neighborhoods I've seen in quite a while.  This is not news to us who have been attending the open houses for the temple or watching it being built. The temple is located right downtown in some of the roughest neighborhoods in Philly. The neighborhoods where the temple is located are very destitute in a lot of ways.

I share this one photo I snapped as we drove in, but really it is one of the nicer buildings, absolutely does not represent what we really saw.  I just share it for a point of reference.  It struck me as we passed through and saw children playing in vacant lots that passed for "parks".  It humbled me.  It impressed upon me. All I could think was, "And the Lord put a temple here!"  He put a temple here, because He loves ALL of his children.  All nationalities, all colors, all creeds, all ages, all circumstances, all economic classes.  He is actively calling each one of us to come follow Him.

The evening was amazing.  We loved hearing and seeing the youth from our stake bearing such powerful testimonies of the Savior Jesus Christ and His gospel and of the importance of temples.  

Some moments I really liked included hearing the story of young William Penn who prayed to God when he saw his father imprisoned.  Not understanding why just men were punished and then feeling light fill the room and vowing to serve God all his days echoed to experiences shared by George Washington and Joseph Smith who also turned to God in prayer for answers.

I loved seeing George Washington crossing the Delaware river and praying with his soldiers.  During that sequence I watched a group of boys posing as soldiers freezing at Valley Forge.  I saw a boy in a wheelchair being brought over to join with his fellow young men around the campfire.  That also touched my heart.  There is room for everyone is Christ's church.

I also loved the sequence where the founding fathers signed the Constitution. They seemed so vulnerable, but also so clearly willing to do what the Lord wanted them to do and to put their trust in Him.

Some of the more delightful and entertaining sequences were Ben Franklin's kite episode and the type-writer sequence. (Hopefully they will post it online so you can see it!)

But my favorite moment had to be the end of the program as the youth circled the replica of the temple which they helped "build", with hands raised, singing "The Spirit of God".  It was so powerful.  I moved up a few rows higher to get a better picture and when I turned around I noticed that there was a "couple" standing in front of the temple getting married.  The whole scene was moving, positive, joyful, strong.

As we drove home we talked about some of the scenes we saw together. We talked of the temple where there is so much order and how things tend to be in a home where there are mothers and fathers who are actively looking out for families, actively teaching them day in and day out, actively forgiving one another and trying to improve together.  We obseved that the Lord has a pattern that He clearly lays out for us in temples, and if we will do our best to follow it, our families will be happier and stronger. In fact, his pattern is the very reason families exist at all.  And if we turn our backs on it, if we stop trying to do the right things in our families, over time, families fail and societies crumble. If we follow it, regardless of our class or economic status, our families can be happy, strong, and grow to be incredible as generations pass.

As hard as it is at our house these days, as stressful as it tends to be trying to keep our family moving in the right direction during what is a very difficult time for us, I can see that I must keep trying no matter how easy it might seem to give up. As tired as I am of telling the children to clean up after themselves, as tired as I am of trying to teach them to be kind to one another...somewhere I must find the strength to try again, one more day, and the day after that one.  And I know the strength I seek to strengthen my family can be accessed as I worship in the temple.

So those are just some thoughts I had last night.  It was a privilege to watch these amazing youth express their love of the gospel and their joy for life last night.  Now, I need to get ready for the dedication later today.  Have a blessed Sabbath!

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Goodly Parents Teach by Sasha Takis

Recently I purchased a Book of Mormon to study with the sole purpose of searching for specific guidance relating to parenting and education. I have been color coding verses according to subject and theme. 

I think it is significant that the most true book on Earth begins with telling us of good parents; Nephi's father taught him what he knew because he was a good parent, the converse being true that because Lehi taught his son, he was a good parent:

"I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father..." (1 Nephi 1:1)

As I studied the family of Lehi anew, and reread of their two return journeys to Jerusalem after fleeing to the wilderness, I paused to consider the reasons for these return trips. The acquisition of the Brass Plates served to preserve a language and provide a record of doctrine and commandments, both necessary for the support, teaching, sustaining, and building of this family and their future generations, and also to provide the genealogy of Lehi's family. 
The convincing of Ishmael and his family to join Lehi's family was for the forming of the most important companionship in this life, those of marrying and making families. 

These two necessary trips were all about the family! From the dust of 600 BC comes the Book of Mormon version of the Proclamation on the Family.

Juxtaposing this part of the Book of Mormon with the Proclamation, I'd like to suggest what it is that is imperative for parents to teach their children.

Teach them where they come from.

• Teach your children that they are eternal beings. Teach them the Plan of Salvation and that they are children of a loving Father in Heaven.
• Teach your children their family history. More than names and dates, search and study the true life stories that are their heritage. Come to know your ancestors as real people and internalize their trials, triumphs, and testimonies.
• Keep in touch with living relatives. Be diligent in strengthening family relationships. Those who make up the members of your family are not a matter of chance.
• Teach your children the history of your nation and to be patriots. Help them recognize the Hand of God in the affairs of history.

Teach them where they are going.

• Teach them that this life is the time to prepare to meet God. Continually walk with them the path that leads back to Him.
• Demonstrate a love of learning and an appreciation for education and improvement.
• Teach your children to work.
• Teach your children to make and keep covenants both in word and by example. Take your family to the temple. Prepare them for the day when they will marry and begin families of their own. 
• Discuss family life and help your children acquire skills for homemaking and providing, as well as those for nurturing family relationships.

Teach them what you know. 

• Follow the example of Lehi and share your knowledge, your passions, your experiences, and your testimony with your children. Be interested in and an active part of your children's educations.
• Set an example of standing up for what is right. Do not underestimate yourself or your influence. Employ the skills and knowledge you've acquired to bless your children  and guard against any enemy.

Teach them language.

• Don't leave to others the responsibility you have to ensure your children are learning and literate. Read to them, read with them, have them read to you. 
• Create a home environment where record keeping is the norm. Journals, scrapbooks, letters, memoirs, even poetry and creative writing should abound.
• Teach good manners in speech and how to effectively communicate with people, being good listeners as well as strong but tempered speakers.
• Help them learn, recognize, and understand the language of the Spirit.
• Teach them to pray.

Moses counseled, "And thou shalt teach (these words) diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up" (see Deuteronomy 6:7). This means good parents are teaching all the time. 

Children are born into families. They aren't born to governments, to schools, to clubs, or even to churches. The Plan of Happiness--the blueprint for finding and achieving real, lasting happiness--is centered on the family and not any other organization or group. Therefore, the rearing and education of children is both the responsibility and privilege of parents to whom children are born. They may employ the help of others for support, but they should never give up what is both their right and their charge in the teaching of their children.

About the author:  Sasha Takis loves hiking, watching her kids play baseball/softball, and doing a lot of laundry in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. She blogs about a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot about homeschooling, parenting, truth, and gospel analogies at http://pegsacademy.blogspot.com/

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it on Facebook! Be sure to check out the other host blogs today for more wonderful posts and testimonies about family.

You can also share your love of family by sharing photos online this month under the hashtag #ILovetheFamilyProclamation.

Here are links to the other blogs:

CranialHiccups

and

A Thing Called Love

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Standing Firm for Gender by Sarah McBride

“ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

IN THE PREMORTAL REALM, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.”

Over the past few years and months, it has become increasingly popular to blur the lines of gender. Not only moving towards redefining what a man is or what a woman is, but posing the question: “Why should we make any distinction at all?”

I am currently studying to become a midwife. An alarming trend in my field is that we are no longer saying “women’s healthcare.” The language now being proposed is that of supposed inclusiveness, which is in fact, insulting the very women we care for. Giving birth to new life is indeed the very essence of womanhood.

Not only is defining gender good science, (think chromosomes xx and xy, the only two combinations) it is God’s divine design.

President Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “Your Heavenly Father has known you for a very long time. You, as His son or daughter, were chosen by Him to come to earth at this precise time, to be a leader in His great work on earth.” (Oct. 2013 General Conference, “Decisions for Eternity”)

As men and women, we each have sacred responsibilities. How do we honor and uphold these responsibilities? How do we stand for truth and lead during this time of confusion? We begin by denying the power of Satan in our own lives.

Satan is clever. He wants us to believe and even deny our own divine potential. When we lose sight of who we are and who we can become, he acts quickly. We need to stand firm in keeping the commandments of our Heavenly Father. He wants to protect us and keep us on His path for our lives. When we begin and end each day having upheld His commandments, we will be prepared for the greater work we need to do.

The second thing we need to do is to love our roles. We need to be examples of righteous manhood or womanhood. Men need to honor the priesthood they have stewardship of. They need to love their duties of leadership, providing, and fatherhood. They need to show their love of the gospel to those around them. Women need to be caring, nurturing, and examples of service and strength. We need to show that our divine roles matter by loving those roles.

Each and every person on this earth came here with divine potential, which has existed from the beginning of time. Before we came here we were male or female. That knowledge is essential to our eternal beings. It is not fluid, changeable, or of little worth.

We live in a changing world, where it is increasingly popular to accept anything and any lifestyle. It is my prayer that we will rise up and stand firm, while also practicing the Christ-like attributes of loving our neighbor as ourselves. That we will recognize our divine nature, strength, and power that lives within each one of us. We do not always need to be bold, but we do always need to be immovable in holding fast to the principles set forth in the scriptures. We are created in His image, as sons and daughters, and by embracing our eternal nature, we will be able to realize and fulfill our full potential.

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it on social media using the hashtag #ILovetheFamilyProclamation 

And be sure to check out the other host blogs today for more wonderful posts and testimonies about family.

Here are links to the other blogs:

CranialHiccups

and

A Thing Called Love

Continue reading... »

Using The Family Proclamation as Your Blueprint by Becky Meng

This is a picture from one of the greatest days of my life.  

Oh I know, it wasn’t all about me on my daughter’s wedding day but this day last year was in the works long before she even thought about getting married so I think it is okay for me to claim a little bit of it for myself and my husband. 

In fact, plans for this day and others like this for our family started back in 1982 – the year my husband and I were married.  This was when I really started thinking about the importance of raising a righteous family of children that would one day go on and become another family or families.  This is what we were going to work for all the years of our married life.

 

My husband referred to our family, our children, as our greatest investment and at first it sounded a little weird to me.  And then he explained what he meant.

He said that nothing is more important to a parent or a couple than their children.  Everything we do is focused on these people we have brought into our lives and we are investing all our time, energy, money and knowledge on them.  They are more valuable to us than any mortgage we will ever hold because we are responsible for teaching them the Gospel and how to follow the correct path back to our Heavenly Father, so yes, they are our greatest investment!

From the beginning we wanted to have a good start and we wanted to be prepared.  I remember when we were newlyweds and thinking about our future family.  I believed that everything in our life would be smooth sailing and that our kids would be these beautiful, handsome and super smart and really successful people.  Mistakes?  Of course our kids would never make any and neither would we!

Tell the truth, you are now smiling and thinking to yourself, “I used to think the exact same thing!”  We all did.

That’s because when we are young we have these positive outlooks on life and we KNOW that we can do anything.  We know how bright our future is and we are going to make it happen – no matter what.

But how were we going to go about nurturing these wonderful little people that we would be hopefully blessed with someday?  If you were like me, you thought it would just come naturally. 

The reality is that we needed then as we do now powerful resources to achieve our goal of raising our kids to know the importance of parents and the family unit.

We needed a blueprint.

We needed inspiration.

We needed help.

Twenty years ago, in September of 1995, when my daughter Jennifer was just 5 years old, President Gordon B. Hinckley presented “The Family:  A Proclamation to the World” in a General Relief Society meeting, and at the time it was a welcomed aid that I was super excited about.  In this short document is placed the exact map for us to follow in regards to our families.  There is no grey area here but it is a loving document that states directly what a family consists of and what children need to be raised according to God’s will.

When it was first made available in print I read it over and over again, because I wanted to know it backward and forward.  I wanted it to be so familiar to me that I wouldn’t even have to think about it.  All my actions would reflect the importance of each word and the meaning behind what it would mean to truly live the proclamation.  Again, my youth and excitement for all things that were good and that would help my husband and I to raise great kids!     

The 7^th paragraph is the one that is studied the most because it gives us in detail the description of our roles in our families as parents but the 1^st paragraph really encompasses the whole document.  For me the first paragraph is so very powerful because it states the two things that we know for sure and they are the basis for all we do in our homes.    

“We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”

Wow!  How could you read that first statement and not just be fired up to live a righteous life and be a better parent?   I thought I was already on the right track but this document was just what I needed to really be the parent I always thought I should be except for one thing.  I wasn’t going to be doing it on my own and it wasn’t because I had this great intuition.  It was the proclamation that was going to set me straight and help lead my husband and I on the right course for our family.  Not my course, but Heavenly Father’s course.

This paragraph gave me strength as a parent because it reaffirmed the fact that marriage between a man and a woman is Heavenly Father’s will for us.  There is no question on this point. 

When our children were young this topic was not really in the mainstream that people were talking about but parents now certainly are faced with this issue because their children are hearing it at school.  Every day.  This is a challenge to say the very least and I worry about all young parents now.  I pray for my children who are now parents themselves, that they will be in tune with what Heavenly Father wants for their families.  I pray that they will know how to answer the difficult questions that will be coming their way regarding the family and how it is to be organized because they will surely come.

I also love the statement that our families are at the center of Heavenly Father’s plan for us to return to live with Him.  That to me reaffirms the importance of our job as parents and the need to place the focus of all that we do on our families.  If we don’t do it, someone else will be more than happy to lead your children – in another direction. 

This is where I would like to make an important point because I think that family scripture study is an activity we can do as a family that is so beneficial to The Family Proclamation because it is going to help keep our children – your children – close to you and on Heavenly Father’s path.  And that is what The Proclamation is all about!

When our oldest son was 8 years old, our youngest was born and it was such a sweet time for us but man was I stressed and tired.  Every day I got up and wondered if I would make it through the day because of exhaustion but I loved being a mother and knew that I needed to take care of all of their needs.  My husband was busy working and I was at home caring for our kids and this was exactly what I wanted to be doing. 

Since we were so busy the only time we had to read scriptures as a family was at night before everyone went to bed.  This was an important time for us and we didn’t want to miss out on it – even if some of us slept through the actual reading part!  I will be honest and say that sometimes I fell asleep too but our good intentions were there.

Our oldest son Matthew loved to lay on the floor while we were reading and he would follow along and listen but sometimes it went just a little too long for him and he would fall asleep.  We would try to wake him up but sometimes he was just too far gone.

Years later I remember talking to some family members at an extended family function about our scripture reading experiences and mentioning in a joking manner that Matthew slept through some of our family scripture time, in particular when we were reading “Jesus the Christ.”  Matthew, who was standing right next to me at the time said to my surprise and enjoyment, that he might have had his eyes closed or even been asleep but he remembered just about everything we read. 

In fact I believe he quoted some pretty heavy doctrine that even I had forgotten.  So cool when these special moments occur for parents!  When they happen for you – WRITE THEM DOWN!  They are precious.

As time goes on things are going to become more and more difficult for parents so it is imperative that we use our most valuable tools that we have to fend off evil, to teach our children the Gospel of Jesus Christ AND to most importantly, know and understand the importance of the family unit.  Because of the Proclamation, we know how to organize and steer our families toward eternal life.  What a great blueprint for everyone!

Use this document in your life now as a parent so that on one of the greatest days of your life, you will be able to look back and say that you had prepared for a day that was all about one of your kids – but in reality, it was all about you too.  “The Family:  A Proclamation to the World” is that document that will help you achieve that goal!

If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it on social media! You can read more sage advice from Becky on her blog: BeckyHasBeenBlogging.com! 

Be sure to check out the other host blogs today for more wonderful posts and testimonies about family.

You can also share your love of family by sharing photos online this month under the hashtag #ILovetheFamilyProclamation.

Here are links to the other blogs:

CranialHiccups

and

A Thing Called Love

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