I have lots of favorite scriptures. One of them is found in Alma 56:
47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.
48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.
It was a couple of years ago that that scripture stood out to me and became part of my daily thoughts. I've spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how to be that kind of mother. I have also taken to heart a talk by Jeffery R Holland (another favorite of mine) "A Prayer for the Children." The entire talk is awesome, here's one paragraph:
"Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. Give priesthood blessings. And bear your testimony! 11 Don’t just assume your children will somehow get the drift of your beliefs on their own. The prophet Nephi said near the end of his life that they had written their record of Christ and preserved their convictions regarding His gospel in order “to persuade our children … that our children may know … [and believe] the right way.” 1
So, it was with great satisfaction I received one of the greatest compliments my daughter could ever give me. It was after family scripture study last night. We started talking about everyone's lessons in church and Emma told about the one she had in yw. I'm paraphrasing here...."So, we had a lesson about mothers. Usually when we (teenagers) think about our moms it is about all the things we would do differently when we are moms. Because, well, we are teenagers and that's what you do. But, we watched this video and there were a bunch of girls talking about their moms. Most of them were talking about how their mom was their best friend and that's just weird. Your mom is your mom, not your best friend, but one of the girls talked about the scripture 'we did not doubt our mothers knew it' and about how she knew her mother knew it (the gospel). After the video we talked about our moms in class and all the girls started talking about how they knew their mom knew, and I looked around and thought....I know your mom.....how is that possible? (that made me laugh) Then I realized. No! My mom really does know and I know she knows because every single day she shares a scripture or a story or she has us look something up. We read and pray together all the time. She makes us watch church videos and talk about them. We are always talking about the gospel. You are a stripling warrior mom - for real."
Well, you can imagine that that made my day. To know that someone else recognizes in you something you have been trying to become. Especially because we had just been discussing what order the kids thought they were in for favorite child. It got me thinking that I've got to do a better job at making each one of them feel like my favorite. See, with every success comes a failure...or two...or three.
This is what it looked like in my house tonight for family scripture study. Most nights I don't think any of the scripture reading sinks in because I think everyone in my family has ADD - When I said that tonight Jared said: "you're just figuring that out?"
We had to get some essentials at the store tonight for FHE, so all the boys were wearing their new socks. I told Nathan that I couldn't claim him if he were going to wear those in public because I'm pretty sure there is an age limit on those and he far surpasses it! He thinks that because they are patriotic it makes it all better....yeah, no! Jared thinks his calves look pretty sweet in his socks (he's also loving his new shirt-he wanted it in the picture) and Ethan just thinks he's super cool in his socks.
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