A Brief Post About Children

This evening we accompanied my extended family to the Draper Utah Temple Open House. We were handed a brochure to help guide us on the tour and on the front is printed the message: "We hope you find peace and inspiration during your visit here." I chuckled out loud when I read it for the first time later tonight because our own experience was anything but peaceful and inspirational.

Even though my kids are too young to remember this trip (both under age 3), I know they are not too young to form impressions about spiritual experiences or to begin learning about the importance of temples and family. I knew they would learn from our enthusiasm and excitement that we were in a special place with special people. So I thought it would be a good idea to take them along.

We picked a really great night to go to the open house. I know this because thousands of other people picked the very same time. We waited much longer than we were prepared to wait. Our scheduled time was 4:00pm but we didn't actually begin our tour until 5:30 or later. About 15 minutes into the tour my toddler had had enough. So my husband had to fight the crowded temple halls against traffic, searching for a way out of an unfamiliar building with my son screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time. Nate said it took him about twenty minutes to get out (poor guy). Anyway, I finished up the tour with my baby girl and the rest of my family members. It was a beautiful, beautiful temple and I'm so grateful I got to tour it, even if it wasn't how I'd imagined it. Anyway when all was said and done, Mom, Dad and kids were pretty tired and stressed and it was probably not the spiritual teaching moment I had hoped for. There's no denying that with children come many difficult challenges, but tremendous blessings as well.

One of the most touching accounts in all the scriptures, to me, is in 3 Nephi when Christ blesses the children and then the angels come and minister to them. As a mother, I can imagine no greater blessing than to have the Savior himself personally minister to my own children. Our Savior loves our little ones so much. The words he spoke and blessed them with were so great they could not be recorded. He wept, he loved them so much. And as a mother, I know why.

The reason I'm writing this post tonight is that I'm so grateful to belong to a church that values children because I certainly value mine. I'm so grateful to be their mother. I'm grateful also to know that there are seasons in life and that while this season may be a difficult one, it will pass and I will actually miss my children being so small. I love to have them with me and I miss them when we're apart. I'm just so grateful for those two precious little miracles sound asleep in their beds upstairs.

They are idols of hearts and of households!
They are angels of God in disguise;
The sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
His glory still gleams in their eyes;
These truants from home and from Heaven,
They have made me more gentle and mild;
And I know now how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.

- Charles Dickens