Note from April: A few months ago, I wrote a post called "Three Questions for Charting Your Course," where I shared how reading the scriptures while looking for answers to specific questions has helped to guide my life.
In the comments of that post, I invited anyone who wanted to know more about the "nuts and bolts" of scripture study with young children to email me, and I would send them additional information. I thought maybe one or two people would contact me, but I've now gotten to the point that I can't keep up with the emails.
So below, I've included the full text of a chapter I wrote on this subject back in 2006.
I was hesitant to put all of this on my blog for a couple of reasons. One, it's REALLY long, and blog posts are typically between 200 and 1000 words. Two, this blog works in partnership with the website I run, Power of Moms, which unites mothers of all backgrounds. We try to keep things as principle-based as possible, so it's rare for me to teach anything that is specific to my religion.
However, this morning I felt like this was something I needed to post on my blog, so I thought I would add a simple note of explanation, and I'm hopeful that the ideas I've included will be of help.
Love,
April
Cling to the Scriptures as Our
Lifeline to the Savior
(Updated from a book chapter I wrote in 2006)
During
my junior year of high school, I received a small chart from one of my
teachers at church with a space to check off for each day of the year that I read my
scriptures. I started January 1st
and made it my goal to get every spot colored in—even if I could only read for
a few minutes each day. Ten years
have passed, and I have tried to continue the habit of reading daily, but
something interesting happened to me once I became a mother.
Our
first daughter was born when I was 21, and I stayed at home with our little
baby while my husband went to work each day. The long hours alone in our apartment, completely opposite
from the busy life I had led as a college student, drove me to study the
scriptures as I never had before.
It was no longer enough to just read for a few minutes and put a check
in a box. I needed the scriptures because hearing the voice of the Lord was the
only way for me to handle my transition to motherhood.
As
more children came to our family, large chunks of uninterrupted time did not
readily present themselves.
Sleeping and showering became top priorities, and I wondered if I would
ever be able to study my scriptures again without being needed by a child or
dozing off before I could finish even one phrase. I often fall short, but with
encouragement from my fellow mothers, a little bit of creativity, and a lot of
help from the Lord, my scripture study has again become a time for spiritual
rejuvenation.
I
need to clarify that I am far from being a perfect scriptorian, but now instead
of feeling inadequate with my meager abilities, I believe the Lord can teach me
what I need to know in the time I am able to offer Him. He teaches us line upon line as we show
Him He is the most important person in our lives and His voice is the one we
are most interested in hearing.
Those
of us who have grown up in religious families or as active members of a church have
been reminded to read our scriptures more often than we can count. We all
know it is important to do, but unless we have had experiences truly feasting on the scriptures, we may subconsciously
leave the responsibility of deep gospel scholarship to those who do not balance their schedules around children.
If
we want to be powerful mothers, we need to receive the scriptures as a precious
gift from the Lord. This chapter
offers five suggestions to help you get started or keep you moving as you
increase your knowledge of the gospel and enjoy quality time learning from our
Redeemer.
First,
believe you can read your scriptures consistently. Second, be willing to read when the circumstances are not
perfect. Third, involve your
children in regular family study.
Fourth, welcome experiences
with the scriptures, and fifth, know the scriptures are talking to mothers.
Believe You Can Read Your Scriptures
Consistently
Most
of us probably would not say, “I don’t believe I can read my scriptures every
day,” but we do seem to have a lot of excuses ready to go: “My children take all of my time.” Or “I just can’t focus on the
scriptures when I’m tired, which is always.” Or “There is just so much to
do—reading my scriptures is just another thing on a list that’s already too
long.” Or “I’ll read the scriptures more when my children are out of the
house.” Perhaps you’ve heard these
before, or thought them like the rest of us, but the time has come for us to
believe that we can feast on the scriptures every day.
Feasting
is more than just looking briefly at a verse; we can take our time to study,
ponder, learn from what we read, and actually feel something in the
process. If you do not know how to feast, find someone in your neighborhood or social networks
who does and ask for some training (my experience has taught me that most
people who feast love to teach others to do the same). My mother refers to her study as
“Divine Fellowship.” She prepares
time each day to commune with the Lord and feel His love. Problems will most certainly
arise that will make our study more difficult, but to put it simply, if we do
not believe we can do it, we will not do it.
We
may start with good intentions and then simply get distracted by something like
an emergency trip to the doctor or the realization that we have just run out of
milk and bread. Another challenge
may be that we read each day because we are “supposed to,” but we miss the
whole point of why we are studying in the first place.
The
Lord does understand that our lives are sometimes hectic, but that is exactly
why we need the scriptures. Even
when our husbands have been working long hours and our children have been sick,
we need the power of the scriptures as much as anyone else. Our callings as mothers
and wives are important to the Lord, and the insights we receive as we
study our scriptures can be just as powerful. He especially wants to speak to us, strengthen us, and
support us when our child has the stomach flu or when we have been cooped up in
a small apartment for days without relief.
We
do not want to see scripture study as an optional activity that is relegated to
the end of our “to do” list, but we also do not need to beat ourselves up if we
do not perfectly reach our goals.
The book Glimpses, about
a woman I greatly admire named Marjorie Pay Hinckley, recorded a cute insight from one of her family letters. She said, “I have a new project, one chapter a day from each of the
standard works. I have been on it
for four days and am only three days behind. Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried”
(p. 79).
A
friend of mine who has an amazing love for the scriptures said it beautifully,
“I used to feel disappointed with myself when I did not read my scriptures, but
now when I don’t read, I just miss it.
I know when I have the ability to read, I make that choice.” She knows that scripture study brings
her closer to the Lord, but serving her children can also do that. I love her words, “When I have the
ability to read, I make that choice.”
That
is usually where most decisions hinge.
When we get to the point where we can make a decision, what do we
choose? The latest fiction novel? Social networks? TV? Chatting on the phone? We do not
have to cut out all of our fun hobbies and activities, but we can be careful
about what we choose to do first.
Believing that we can read the
scriptures each day may also include the belief that we can read for an
extended period of time. A few
years ago, I accepted a challenge from a mother in my ward to study the
scriptures for an hour each day.
The adjustment was a bit difficult—okay, it was very difficult—but once
I discovered the thrill of cross-referencing and the power of footnotes, the
hour flew by. Every day has definitely
not been perfect, but the impact it has had on my life has transformed my
perception of who I am and who my Savior is.
A former president of our church named Howard W. Hunter taught this principle beautifully:
“It would be ideal if an
hour [of
scripture study] could be spent each
day; but if that much
cannot be had,
a half
hour on
a regular basis would result in substantial accomplishment.
A quarter of an
hour is little time, but
it is surprising how much enlightenment and knowledge can be acquired in
a subject so meaningful. The important thing is to allow
nothing else to ever interfere with our study”
(Howard
W. Hunter, “Reading the Scriptures,” Ensign, Nov. 1979, 64).
If we make our
scripture study a priority each day, we will be ready to learn the mysteries of
God and hear the voice of the Lord as He leads us through our individual
challenges. The Spirit will help
us to know what to do with our time, but we must believe we can read.
Be willing to read when the circumstances are
not perfect
Can
you visualize the following scenario?
You have just had a wonderful night’s rest, and you woke up
naturally at five o’clock, ready to curl up in front of your fireplace with
your scriptures, church books, and marking pencils neatly laid before
you. Your children are sleeping
peacefully, and soft instrumental hymns play in the background while you take
notes in your journal and receive new insights.
Doesn’t
that sound lovely? I am not trying
to mock this ideal because it has actually happened for me about three times in
the past six years. However, if I
were to wait for this perfect moment to come around, can you guess how often I
would read my scriptures? Yep—once
every two years.
In
the talk quoted above by President Hunter, he suggests we have a regular time
to read each day. Some mothers
read for the first part of every nap time, others read while they are nursing
their babies, and many mothers read at night (these are the ones who are good
at keeping their eyes open).
Mornings work the best for me because my brain has not yet had any
threats of being turned to mush.
If your current
schedule is lacking in predictability, here are a few ideas to get you thinking
about how to incorporate the scriptures into your life. The Lord can help you to tailor these
suggestions to your unique situation and make it possible for you to hear His
voice each day.
First, keep
multiple sets of scriptures around your home, so you will always have one handy
if a quiet moment strikes (the inexpensive copies produced
by our Church work beautifully).
You may want one in the kitchen cupboard, so you can read while
something is in the microwave or if your children get involved in a game. You could also keep one by your bed,
one in the car, one in the living room, one in the linen closet, one by the CD
player, and yes, one in the bathroom.
The bathroom does
not sound like the ideal place to receive revelation, but if that is the only
place you have a chance to open a book, the Lord will understand. If your children are content with and
capable of playing in the bath for awhile, you can sit on the floor by the tub,
shield yourself with a towel, and read until they are ready to be
shampooed. If they have not yet
discovered the acoustical delight of squealing in the tub, you could read aloud
to them. The point is that if the
scriptures are readily available, it is easy to seize the moments that open
during your day.
If you prefer to
read consistently out of the same book so you can consolidate your markings,
just move your scriptures a couple of times during the day so they will be
close. Moderation and personal
discretion are definitely principles that apply here, but as you carry your
scriptures or see them as you work around the house, you will remember they are
a top priority.
Second,
get creative in finding a private place and time to read. A close friend of mine lived in a
studio apartment when she had her first child, and her little girl would not
nap if her mother was in the same room.
Each day at nap time, my friend sat in their bathroom and read her
scriptures. She later told me that
those hours contributed to one of her most spiritual times in life. Obviously, it was not just being
in the bathroom that made her spiritual—it was investing a substantial amount
of time reading her scriptures.
I
promise I’ll stop talking about bathrooms, but I have to add this one last
experience. When my husband finished
graduate school, we moved into a tiny two-bedroom apartment while we shopped
for a home. I had a four-year-old,
a two-year-old, and a one-year-old who were not very good at sleeping in the
same room, so my little one-year-old, Ethan, slept in the living room.
I
wanted desperately to wake up early each morning for my Divine Fellowship, but
I didn’t know where to go without waking somebody. I thought back to the experience of my friend in her studio
apartment, and I created a little study area on the floor in our bathroom. I brought my pillow, marking pencils,
and scriptures in there, and the months in that apartment yielded some of my
most treasured spiritual experiences.
Growing
up, I remember frequently seeing my mother read her scriptures out in the
car. She referred to our Civic
wagon as her office, and she would sometimes leave the noise of the home to
read and think there (we were old enough to care for ourselves at that point). If we ever could not find her in the
house, we would peek out the front window to see if she was in the car, but we
rarely interrupted her study (though she might remember things differently).
Every
time I visualize my mother, I see scriptures on her lap. When I woke up for seminary (my early-morning gospel study class), she was on
the couch studying her scriptures.
If I popped in her room after school, she had her scriptures out on her
bed, heavily annotated and highlighted.
If I was going to be late coming from a drama rehearsal and needed her
to wait in the car, she would say, “That’s okay. Take your time.
I’ll have my scriptures with me.”
It was such a blessing to know my mother loved the Lord and loved her
scriptures.
Another
idea that has worked is to establish a 7:00 rule in your home. That means that mom is on duty starting
at 7:00. If the children wake up
before then, they can look at books, play with toys, or watch cartoons, if you
approve, but breakfast is served at 7:00.
Of course, diapers sometimes cannot wait to be changed, and hungry
babies need to be fed, but once children are old enough to wait, they can be
taught to respect your morning study.
From personal experience, the 7:00 rule works about 20 percent of the
time—mainly because life doesn’t like to wait until 7.
One
morning I got up at 6:30 to get a half hour of study in before my day started,
but the moment I opened my scriptures, my Kindergartner appeared at my bedside
to report that her ear infection was really hurting and her little sister had
soaked the bed. That is when I go
to Plan B and read during our quiet time (described below). I try to have Plans A-Z available so
scripture study will happen no matter what.
Having
a daily quiet time is helpful way to carve out time to read. Once children outgrow their morning
naps, they may still need a little break during that time. Every morning after my children have
eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, and have had an opportunity to play or read
for awhile, they start whining and acting fussy. If I separate them and give them each a quiet place to play
and a special container of toys, they will play quietly for the next 30-45
minutes. That way I can read my
scriptures without using their sleep time (which is valued above gold).
Opportunities
to read our scriptures come more frequently when we do everything we can to protect
our time with them. If we are in a
position to do so, we can limit our errands and busy work as much as possible
so we are not constantly rushing out the door. If our lives get so busy that scripture study gets crowded
out, we may have taken on too many things—some of which may be
nonessential. The Lord wants us to
be successful at reading our scriptures, but if we are signing up for fifteen
activities each week, He will be squeezed out of our lives.
It is also easy to
get sidetracked by all the media available to us. One darling woman I know had a hard time reading her
scriptures every day, so she accepted our Sunday School teacher’s challenge
to read for two weeks and then report her experience to the class. She explained to all of us that she was
so busy reading the scriptures that she stopped reading the many popular
magazines to which she had subscribed.
“Just put them in
a pile for me to read later,” she told her husband. However, as the pile began to get a bit unwieldy, and as her
devotion to studying the scriptures continued, she said, “Why don’t you just
put those magazines in the trash?”
Her decision confirmed the truth of the oft-quoted principle taught by
President Ezra Taft Benson: "when we put God first, all other things fall
into their proper place or drop out of our lives” (Ensign, May 1988, 4).
To some, this
might sound like a whole lot of work.
It is, but it is work that will not feel like work. As the blessings of the Lord come to
you, your life will completely change for the better. Making the Lord our top priority is a way we can thank Him
for making us His top priority.
Involve your children in regular family study
There
are always days when a mother’s “alone time” is taken up with urgent family
needs, pressing tasks, or sheer exhaustion. If early-morning study does not happen one day, and if
necessary errands crowd out a morning quiet time, having a regular scripture
study with our children can bring us at least one opportunity to read the
scriptures. Involving our children
can bring beautiful experiences and teach us the principles of the gospel in an
entirely different way.
One
way to involve children is to read on their level.
The
Gospel Art Kit or the illustrated scriptures are wonderful.
Audio
tapes are available, and the children honestly can’t get enough.
Many families have discovered these
tools and use them daily in their family scripture study.
In
addition to reading on the children’s level, you can bring them up nearer to
your level. One close friend of
mine and her husband have been gospel teachers for years, and they have five boys under the age of ten. Each morning, they sit around the
breakfast table with their scriptures and red pencils, and they learn to
cross-reference, underline and find answers to doctrinal questions with the use
of the Topical Guide and Bible Dictionary. I’m not quite to that point, and I do not know if I will
ever be to that point, but it is a testimony that children can learn more than
we sometimes give them credit for.
A
couple of days each week, my little girls like to sit by me on the floor with
their own copy of The Book of Mormon and their colored pencils (their set
matches mine). They neatly
underline random scriptures and sit quietly (sometimes only after a few
reminders) while I read on my own.
If they do not feel like reading or marking, I let them be my pencil
monitors. I tell them which of the
five colors I need, and they take turns handing them to me. This keeps me focused on the principles
I am trying to find in the scriptures, and I am always amazed at how long they
will sit holding the cup of pencils.
Invariably,
the cup spills or a pencil has to be sharpened, and they are excited about
being useful. My son, Ethan, would
rather color on the walls with the scripture pencils, so
I just try to keep him occupied with toys—I have not lost hope for him yet,
though.
One
cute thing you will notice is that your children will mark their scriptures the
same way you do. My daughters put
little circles around the verse numbers, underline with the same colors, and
even annotate in the margins. When
we started doing this, my daughter Alia only knew how to write two words, so in
her margin is written “Alia Mom” over and over again. When my daughter Grace turned three, she
brought her scriptures and pencils to me and asked me to tell her where it said
“Jesus”. She carefully circled
that word and then continued searching for familiar letters and numbers.
Recently,
a friend of mine taught me how she studies the scriptures with her
three-year-old son.
They have a
special study time each afternoon when she teaches him a five-step process:
pray, read, ponder, write, thank.
Her son has his own scripture journal to record what he is learning, and
they memorize scriptures, sing primary songs, and do a hands-on activity each
day.
I saw the
Liahona they made
by spray-painting a gerbil ball gold and gluing a compass inside.
I saw Nephi’s ship that was made out of
craft sticks, and I saw dozens of journals they had filled with pictures and
words describing truths of the restored gospel.
Sometimes her little boy “writes” and then tells her what it
says so she can translate it into legible letters.
She
does not do these things because she feels obligated to do them.
She does them because she loves the
Lord and is excited about teaching her son what she knows.
After visiting with her, I was excited
to use plastic army men to act out
Moroni’s battle with Amalickiah, and my
children were thrilled to be a part of it.
The Lord reminded his apostles, “Suffer little children to
come unto me, and forbid them not” (Luke 18:16). What better work can we do
besides bring the little children to our Lord?
One morning I said to Alia, “I hope that one day you’ll love
the scriptures.”
She looked at me
very seriously and said, “But Mom, I already do.”
Welcome Experiences with the Scriptures
Until
I became a mother, I didn’t know that there was a difference between reading
the scriptures and having experiences with the scriptures. You may think I was a little clueless,
but I had not learned that the scriptures literally speak to us, just as the
Liahona gave written messages to Lehi’s family in the wilderness. Because of this discovery, I am excited
to read the scriptures to hear what the Lord wants to say to me.
A
time when I most felt the scriptural text speaking to me was a morning when I
was routinely awakened at 4:30 a.m. by my one-year-old son, Ethan. He must have been teething or going
through a growth spurt or something, but for about two months, he woke up every
morning at 4:30 and could not go back to sleep.
I
changed Ethan’s diaper, gave him his bottle, and then went into the next room
to read my scriptures—always keeping out a listening ear so I could take him
downstairs if his cries threatened to wake the girls in the adjoining
room. I knelt to pray and asked
the Lord to please help Ethan go back to sleep. Starting “Mom Duty” at 4:30 got me off to a grumpy start,
but I knew that the Lord could help me make good use of those morning hours.
I
got up and sat at our desk, opened my scriptures to the page marker, and read
the first words in the top left-hand corner. They were the words of Isaiah: “Ye are weary, he waketh
morning by morning” (2 Nephi 7:4).
I felt perfectly understood by the Lord at that moment, and I felt the
Lord remind me that He knew I was tired.
He knew that Ethan was waking up every morning at a challenging hour,
and He wanted me to have time to read my scriptures and feel close to Him. Ethan immediately fell back to sleep,
and for the next 45 minutes, I read, studied, and felt closer to my Father than
I had in months.
Another
powerful experience happened when I was pregnant with my second child,
Grace. I had had “one of those
days” caring for a two-year-old while waddling around the apartment with my
growing tummy. Alia was being a
little rascal, and my patience supply could not keep up with the demand (I wish
I could buy stock in patience). I
sat down on the floor and handled the situation with all the maturity I could
muster: I simply started to cry.
Alia
came over to me and asked what she could do. I pointed to a Book of Mormon on the nearby bookshelf and
asked her to bring it to me. I did
not know where else to turn, so I opened the scriptures with the hope that the
Lord would give me some kind of guidance.
After
flipping a couple of pages, I came to
King Benjamin’s address, and I felt
impressed to read his testimony of the Savior and the prophecy that the Savior
would carry all of our burdens and be crucified for our sake.
“All right,” I thought.
“The Lord wants to remind me that He
suffered more than I can even comprehend.
I don’t need to feel sorry for myself.”
I continued reading through the next verse, and came to the
phrase, “And His mother shall be called Mary.”
Tears
welled up in my eyes, and I could feel the Savior teaching me that He, too, had
a mother on earth. She was a woman
who also went through pregnancy and discomfort, and the tender love the Savior
has for His earthly mother is the same tender love He has for us, His younger
sisters. The Lord did not scold me
for being weak and tired—He just reminded me that He understands. I felt transformed by His power, and my
outlook brightened in those few moments it took to read those verses.
One
final experience I’ll share happened during a time I felt quite unimportant as
a mother. I had just moved to a
new neighborhood, and I was adjusting to our new church congregation and community. Because my children and I stayed home
most of the time (to satisfy their napping and feeding needs), I felt out of
place compared to all of the “minivan” moms around me who were heavily involved
with school, sports and church activities for the youth (little did I know that
those mothers wish they could spend as much time at home as I do).
I
opened my scriptures one morning, asking the Lord to please help me to know
that He hadn’t forgotten about me.
As I read various scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants and followed the
footnotes, I was led back to
section 6, verse 34.
These are the words that popped out to me:
“Therefore, fear not, little flock; do
good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock,
they cannot prevail.”
I
immediately envisioned myself and my children as the Lord’s sheep, a little
flock He holds close and leads by His loving voice.
Warmth replaced the loneliness I felt, and I thanked the
Lord for caring enough about my concerns to teach me these precious
truths.
I continued my
study—looking in the
Topical Guide, using the footnotes and reading words I’d
previously highlighted.
By the end
of that hour, I knew I had just had a private tutoring session with my Father.
It
is those kinds of experiences that keep bringing me back to the
scriptures. I know I have only
touched the surface of what is available to us, and that is why I am willing to
do whatever it takes to read. If
we pray for spiritual experiences and look for principles that apply to our
lives, we will always receive them.
The Lord will give us specific impressions, and though the verses we are
reading may not necessarily be talking about our present situation, the Lord
has the power to transform them into answers for us.
Know that the scriptures are talking to mothers
When
I turned 12 years old, I was asked to give my first talk in Sacrament Meeting
on Mother’s Day.
I wanted to
include a scripture in my talk, but besides the one about the
striplingwarriors being taught by their mothers, and the accounts about Mary and Eve, I
did not know any others that seemed appropriate.
I finally decided to share the story of Ruth and Naomi (a
mother-in-law), but I was a bit confused as to why the scriptures have so few
references to mothers.
Now
I will jump ahead 15 years…. In
the July 2005 Ensign, Henry B. Eyring shared his method of reading and
marking the scriptures. When he
was called to be an apostle of our church, he purchased a new, inexpensive set of scriptures
in which to mark and categorize each verse that pertained to what the Lord
wanted him to learn and do in his calling as an apostle (p.23-24). After I read that article, I felt
impressed to apply that process to my calling as a mother.
I
got out a piece of paper and wrote down the top five things I felt the Lord
wanted me to learn about motherhood, and then I assigned each a specific
color. My dedication to this study
jumped up a notch when, the very next month, the president of our church, Gordon B. Hinckley, invited all of
us to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year.
This
process has taught me that although the word “mother” is not frequently
mentioned in the scriptures, we can apply the teachings of these sacred
records to our callings as mothers.
The parallels that have come out of the Book of Mormon have added a
depth to my mothering that I did not know I was missing. There are limitless ways to study and
mark the scriptures—I will just share two things I have learned through this
process so you will get the idea (not that you are unable to figure this out
yourself, but if someone had explained this to me five years ago, I would have
been thrilled.).
One
of the principles I felt the Lord wanted to teach me is that I must trust
Him.
I have been using the color
orange to mark the verses that encourage me to do so.
A few of those verses include, “Look to the great Mediator”
(
2 Nephi 2:28), “Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with
exceeding faith” (
Jacob 3:1), and
Alma 15:10, where Alma shows his trust in God
when he pleads on behalf of Zeezrom by saying, “O Lord our God, have mercy on
this man, and heal him according to his faith which is in Christ.”
One interesting thing is that my orange
pencil is currently the very shortest of my five pencils—a visual reminder that
the Lord wants me to trust Him every day.
A
second principle I have focused on is that as a mother, I must share my
testimony with my children and teach them about Jesus Christ.
When I come across a principle that I
want to teach my children, or when I find a scripture describing how the Lord
will help me teach, I mark it in green.
One of these scriptures is
Helaman 5:18: “they had power and authority
given unto them that they might speak, and they also had what they should speak
given unto them.”
This reminds me
that when an opportunity opens in which I can teach the gospel to my children,
the Lord will help me to know what to say, and I will be able to testify with
power and authority.
Another
scripture that demonstrates the power of a parent’s testimony is
Alma36:17.
Alma the younger says, “I
remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the
coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the
world.”
If I can live with the
valiance of Alma, my children will one day remember the words I speak, and they
will hopefully be willing to submit their lives to God.
Other
scriptures I have marked teach the difference between spiritual and temporal
death, describe the characteristics of stalwart disciples, or warn about the
dangers of pride. Although my
children will probably be reminded of these principles in Sunday School or
Seminary, I want them to learn them in our home first. By specifically marking my
scriptures for that purpose, I have a record of the teachings I do not want to
forget to pass on. Teaching by the
scriptures gives us more confidence in God and less fear of the adversary, and
the Spirit of the Lord will bless our homes.
The
biography of John Adams describes the feelings he had while traveling to
Philadelphia in the summer of 1774 for the First Continental Congress, “We have
not men fit for the times. We are
deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune—in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety” (p.
23). As our founding fathers
prepared for the birth of a nation, they knew they needed the best the colonies
had to offer. They needed men who
were already prepared—not men who had
been idling away their time and did not understand the demands of the day.
InAlma 49:8, we read about the Lamanites who came to battle against the Nephites
and hoped to bring them into bondage.
When they arrived at the city Ammonihah, they saw that captain Moroni
had caused it to be uniquely fortified, and they were completely astonished.
The Nephites, “were prepared for them,
in a manner which never had been known among the children of Lehi.”
In
our world today, we must be “fit for the times”—prepared to teach and
strengthen our families, our friends, and our communities in a way that has “never
been known among the children of [men]”. The battles that rage today are more treacherous than ever
before, and they require men and women who are prepared with the armor of
God. We must become better than we
have been. We must cherish the
scriptures and use them as the means to approach our Father and hear His
voice.
Mothers,
feasting upon the scriptures may not be simple, but the power of the Lord will
be with us as we seek to hear Him and know Him. It is by His power that we are able to do all things, and
drawing close to Jesus Christ is worth our best efforts. He will prepare us with His power if we
will turn to Him and receive of His Word. I know this to be true, and my prayers are with you as you do this most beautiful and noble work of motherhood.
