Sometimes I wonder if Brice and I are doing enough to teach and model the gospel in our home. Let's face it; we don't read our scriptures daily and our kids certainly don't see us doing it, we lose our tempers with the kids and I have a hard time saying sorry, and I'm horrible at remembering my personal prayers. We are good about FHE and family prayer and church attendance and other things, but I often wonder how much better we would fare if we were better about some things. Well, my feelings of guilt were diminished somewhat the other day by my sweet little Raelin.
Me: Raelin, I've noticed that you haven't been sucking your thumb as much lately.
Raelin: Yeah.
Me: That's really cool! Did you decide you wanted to stop or is it just happening by itself?
Raelin: Well, I said a prayer a while ago that Heavenly Father would help me stop sucking it and He is helping me.
Me: Aaaawww! Raelin, that's so cool! Don't you love how Heavenly Father answers our prayers?
Ryker: I'm going to say a prayer that Heavenly Father will help me stop sucking my thumb too. Dear Heavenly Father, Please help me to stop sucking my thumb. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. Now I will stop sucking my thumb too!
Don't you just love the faith of little children!? Such good kids! It makes my heart happy when I hear that they have really internalized some of the gospel precepts. I think that our whole family's testimony of prayer has been strengthened over the years to a large degree because of our animals. Sounds weird, I know, but when we pray about our animals, our prayers are so immediately and tangibly answered. For instance, Raelin's snake is an escape artist (yes, we have a had a snake loose in our house on a number of occasions). 
Every single time she gets out, we get everyone together and look for her. We look and look and look, but have not once been able to find her until after we have knelt on our knees to ask the Lord for help. And then we find her within literally one minute. With our dogs (ALL of them) they have gotten lost, ran away, escaped, you name it and we are left wondering where to look, what to do, and how in the world to find them. We find ourselves leaning on the Lord to reunite us with our dogs. It's interesting; with Jax we always felt to walk or drive and call for him. 
With Cooper, we are prompted to just wait for him. 
But in any case, until we turn it over to the Lord, we have no hope of finding and of our lost animals. But the instant we do turn it over, we find them. It's interesting the amount of love we feel from the Lord when He helps us find our animals. 
It's kind of a silly thing for us to always be pleading for His help on behalf of animals, but it's like He's telling us, "If I'm willing to help you with this, what more do you think I would be willing to help you with if you will just ask?" I try to remember that as I struggle to raise these precious kids who are more His than mine. I need to learn that, not only am I incapable, but I am also not expected to raise them by my own strength, will, and determination. If He knows us so well and is so willing to help us with something as simple as finding our dogs and snake, He would of course want nothing more than to help us live the gospel so that we can return to live with Him!
Every single time she gets out, we get everyone together and look for her. We look and look and look, but have not once been able to find her until after we have knelt on our knees to ask the Lord for help. And then we find her within literally one minute. With our dogs (ALL of them) they have gotten lost, ran away, escaped, you name it and we are left wondering where to look, what to do, and how in the world to find them. We find ourselves leaning on the Lord to reunite us with our dogs. It's interesting; with Jax we always felt to walk or drive and call for him. 
With Cooper, we are prompted to just wait for him. 
But in any case, until we turn it over to the Lord, we have no hope of finding and of our lost animals. But the instant we do turn it over, we find them. It's interesting the amount of love we feel from the Lord when He helps us find our animals. 
It's kind of a silly thing for us to always be pleading for His help on behalf of animals, but it's like He's telling us, "If I'm willing to help you with this, what more do you think I would be willing to help you with if you will just ask?" I try to remember that as I struggle to raise these precious kids who are more His than mine. I need to learn that, not only am I incapable, but I am also not expected to raise them by my own strength, will, and determination. If He knows us so well and is so willing to help us with something as simple as finding our dogs and snake, He would of course want nothing more than to help us live the gospel so that we can return to live with Him!
4 comments:
What a beautiful entry! You've got such good hearted kids.
A very touching post, I find myself emotional and with goosebumps. I love the faith and sincerity of our children, there are so many times that my children teach me with sweet little reminders. Thanks for your post, we all need little reminders to just ask for help, he's just a prayer away! :)
Thanks morgs! That is something that I needed today as I've been struggling to be friends with my kids. Haha! Thank u for being so in tune ;)
That is a beautiful story. We pray for our cats when they haven't come home. We can look and look and call and call. They don't turn up. then, as soon as we pray for them, here they come meandering in.
Thanks for writing and reminding all of us of our Father's love!
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