This is more of a personal post. Just thoughts I wanted to jot down.
I have been thinking about this all week. The imagery comes from about a talk I heard along time ago.
Recently, I have watched several people struggling around me trying to find their spiritual footing. Its so hard to watch. Being an imperfect person, I find myself holding back any advice or help I may want to offer. After all, I dont claim to be the poster child for the LDS church, or a role model of an exceptional life. Trials and hardships come to all people. Its a universal surity. I have had my problems and issues. Who am I to offer anything? Nevertheless, I hurt for people, and know what being "lost" can feel like.
It helps to have a view of peace and hope through it all. I am grateful for the examples of my parents and others who showed me what a happy life consisted of. I'm grateful that I have a firm testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ to give me direction. I know he died for all of us. I know he lives. I know he will return again.- This peace and hope brings sunshine even during the storms of life.
But how do you share that with someone struggling? How do you tell that person that their good and bad choices will effect generations?
Sometimes I watch people who all know these things. Yet, they choose to live like they dont. This is particularly hard to watch. Especially when they have a family and spouse that heavily rely on their guidance and example.
Fortunately,
Elder Holland gave a talk in
Confrence of 2003. Titled "A prayer for the Children".( He was addressing parents in this talk but it goes for spouses/couples without children too!)
I highlighted part of the talk, the imagery that kept coming to my mind all week. The imagery of the campsite. A campfire blazing in the center- The warmeth of the fire being the peace and direction that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ. This talk really impacted me when I heard it all those years ago.
"In this I speak carefully and lovingly to any of the adults of the Church, parents or otherwise, who may be given to cynicism or skepticism, who in matters of whole-souled devotion always seem to hang back a little, who at the Church’s doctrinal campsite always like to pitch their tents out on the periphery of religious faith. To all such—whom we do love and wish were more comfortable camping nearer to us—I say, please be aware that the full price to be paid for such a stance does not always come due in your lifetime. No, sadly, some elements of this can be a kind of profligate national debt, with payments coming out of your children’s and grandchildren’s pockets in far more expensive ways than you ever intended it to be.
Parents simply cannot flirt with skepticism or cynicism, then be surprised when their children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance. If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream by this intellectual current or that cultural rapid, we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored, unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household. It won’t help anyone if we go over the edge with them, explaining through the roar of the falls all the way down that we really did know the Church was true and that the keys of the priesthood really were lodged there but we just didn’t want to stifle anyone’s freedom to think otherwise. No, we can hardly expect the children to get to shore safely if the parents don’t seem to know where to anchor their own boat. Isaiah once used a variation on such imagery when he said of unbelievers, “[Their] tacklings are loosed; they could not … strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail.” 6
Nephi-like, might we ask ourselves what our children know? From us? Personally? Do our children know that we love the scriptures? Do they see us reading them and marking them and clinging to them in daily life? Have our children ever unexpectedly opened a closed door and found us on our knees in prayer? Have they heard us not only pray with them but also pray for them out of nothing more than sheer parental love? Do our children know we believe in fasting as something more than an obligatory first-Sunday-of-the-month hardship? Do they know that we have fasted for them and for their future on days about which they knew nothing? Do they know we love being in the temple, not least because it provides a bond to them that neither death nor the legions of hell can break? Do they know we love and sustain local and general leaders, imperfect as they are, for their willingness to accept callings they did not seek in order to preserve a standard of righteousness they did not create? Do those children know that we love God with all our heart and that we long to see the face—and fall at the feet—of His Only Begotten Son?"
I want to be better. More like my mother. She never is afraid to be who she is. Church things are such a part of her that its in her conversation, her actions, her constant thoughts. She oozes happiness and light.
Sometimes I feel embarrassed to have my faith encroach into secular things. Im not sure why. It sometimes just feels awkward to chime in with something "churchy". But afterall, isnt that part of who I am?
Maybe I dont want to seem like a fanatical, stringent woman. I dont want to seem like Im some blind follower with nothing to do but sing hymns and can peaches.
(Neither of which are part of my salvation by the way. Although singing hymns are like saying prayers and canning peaches may save me financially or physically someday.)
Im afraid for my children some days. Im afraid that Im not showing them who I am and what I believe all the time. I dont want them to pitch their tents far from the campfires of the gospel. I want them to be camping within the reach of the warmth of the embers and flames.
I need to LIVE my Religion a little more. And be a better "example of the believers".
Maybe that is all that is asked of me to help others in their times of trial.
Living the gospel is more than just being a member of the church. I hope to be better at teaching my children to live the gospel. Then they will have direction during their trials. And I will have comfort that they will live in a world full of evils, and not have to taste of every hardship.
Better get to putting some more wood on my own personal fire, and helping my children to learn to light theirs...
