Today was fast and testimony meeting at church. (For those who don't know what that it, the first Sunday of every month members are asked to fast. During the first hour, members meet in the chapel as normal to partake of the sacrament, and afterward, anyone who feels the need, may stand up at the podium and bear their own personal testimony about Jesus Christ or a gospel truth.)
I LOVE....fast and testimony meeting...
LOVE IT!
Today, a mother stood up to share with all of us her thanks for the many prayers given for her son, who had been terribly ill with pneumonia. She testified of the power of fasting and prayer, and how it blessed her son. I wish you could have been there to hear her simple, kind, gentle, and humble testimony. It filled me up. As she spoke, I looked down the bench where we were sitting, and saw her son sitting there at the other end. I watched her little boy sit there with his eyes intently set upon his mother as she recalled the month of struggles their family faced with his illness, and of the small little miracles that occurred that helped restore his health.
Shining through his eyes and countenance, I saw there so much love and adoration...and it seemed as if he were drawing strength and faith from his mother's testimony....that her words only confirmed what he felt in his own heart...but, oh, how much I could see of the love and bond that surely existed between mother and son.
I was so touched by the experience I had, and from the feelings I felt there...and I thought about this sweet mother, who I have known so many years now, and of the influence she had over her children as she stood before them and bore her testimony of truths she knew to be true.
I have been thinking about her all day...
and thinking about what I saw in her little boy's eyes...
Mothers. What tremendous influence we have! What WONDERFUL, AMAZING, TREMENDOUS influence we have!!!!! It is a beautiful thing to think and contemplate about. I know I only understand very little about the role women have, a role that is God-given, a role that each of us were foreordained with....but today, I saw a glimpse of a most sacred and powerful force that exists between mother and child. And more than that, I FELT in my heart, the urgent importance that my Heavenly Father was relaying to me through the Holy Spirit of a truth I know He wishes all women would grasp onto and take into their hearts....
of the wonderful, tremendous influence women have in this world and within their homes.
All during church, my thoughts kept churning...my feelings and ideas developing further into something like this:
The world has so much to offer women, men, families, and children....so much! To try and process it all can be overwhelming! There is so much out there! Where do we, as women and mothers, draw the line? How much is too much? When does it start to take us away from what matters most? How involved do we really need to be, and what will our children learn because of their involvement?
As a mom, all I want is for my children to find happiness. The world can offer many, many things that can give us a sense of happiness. But not TRUE happiness. Sometimes, as women, we look outside ourselves for things, toys, places, items, games, activities, vacations....and we do all that we can to involve all of that into our homes and lives, to bring "happiness" to our children. Now, as a mom, I admit that without many of these things....I would probably go crazy! There are many things found outside our homes that will bring great satisfaction into the lives of our children. We all need to have FUN. But when is it that we get too consumed with the fun? I am not sure...when does it happen that the fun starts to take a greater priority over the things which matter most? Families can be so busy nowadays, that they actually spend very little time in their homes with each other....the quality and quantity of time they are given to have wonderful opportunities in the home is greatly lessened....a time where the influence of a mother and father can be quite profound.
As I attended my church classes, I kept looking at all the women around me...women I knew very well, and many I knew not at all. And a thought came to mind of the miracle of creation. Take everything else away....money, shoes, fancy clothing, hair-styles, bracelets and necklaces, cute bags and purses....and I thought about a woman and about how God created all women....I thought of all the wonderful gifts and talents and innate womanly attributes He gives to us....I thought about the spirits within each of us....
And in all of my thinking, I felt amazed to realize that a woman with just two bare hands....without anything else but her two BARE HANDS....and I thought about all the things the Lord has created us and given us the capability to DO! And there is, really, NOTHING else we as women need to accomplish so many wonderful things!
There is nothing this world could ever offer, nothing it could ever try to duplicate, that could even come close to what one woman can do in bringing happiness to her children.
I think about all the games we have, of all the places we have been, of all the things we have done as a family....and as much as our family needs moments like those together, none of those places and movies...games, activities, vacations....none of them will really bring to our family LASTING happiness. If we cannot feel content where we are, within the walls of our own home....then what have I really accomplished as a mother? I want to live so if one day, we lost everything...there were no more material possessions....no capability or money to do "fun" things....I would like to know that I raised my family in a way that a happening like that wouldn't change the way they felt about where happiness comes from.
If we focus on what matters most, if we turn our focus and direction towards the Gospel of Jesus Christ, towards the temple, towards family home evening and moments of prayer and fasting....couldn't it be true to say that if we had nothing else, we would still have happiness, even feel for once, TRUE happiness?
In the end...isn't that all we will have anyway? In heaven, after death, do you think we will be wishing we had gone on more vacations....had a nicer car...ate out more often....whatever it is that we get so caught up in....are those the things that will matter? Will we spend so much time being busy, that we look back and see all the times we spent doing needless things when we could have done more talking with our family over the dinner table about life, love, truth, and faith? Will we realize that we spent so many hours of our time on the computer or in front of the television....and wonder for what? Wonder why we didn't flip the switch to off, and fill the need of a squirmy, impatient toddler, or jump up to work side by side with our spouse and children working in the home, laboring and loving in a way that can only be accomplished when we keep the outside world out.
We are created after the image of our loving Heavenly Father and older brother, Jesus Christ. Within us we have a divine nature, and we need not rely upon the world to do what we were sent here to do. We have a great responsibility, and also a great ability, to rise to a higher standard and fulfill our own individual purposes here on Earth. It is within each of us, the power to grasp and understand the eternal perspective of why we are really here...and it wasn't just to have fun. It was to establish HAPPINESS...a happiness that comes from sacrificing and consecrating your time, means, talents, everything you have or will have, to the work and glory of God...the immortality and eternal life of man.
As I listened to a simple testimony....
coming from a humbled mother....
I just knew in my heart that no greater good can a woman ever do than the work she can choose to do within the walls of her own home. And right then and there, I decided that no matter what happens in my life, no matter where we might go or what we might do, that the greatest accomplishment I could ever achieve would be to see in the eyes of my children what I saw in such an innocent little boy's eyes as he listened to his mother bear testimony of the most wonderful things on this Earth....Faith....and Truth....Love...and Light...
because of The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Nothing else should matter....
Nothing else should be of greater importance....
