“When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.” ~ET Sullivan

Monday, September 24, 2007

Hugs for everyone

We have recently begun the era of 2-minute Family Home Evening lessons geared toward toddlers. I realized as I organized my selected Gospel Art pictures that this was only the first of many. MANY. (I also realized that all those times we tried to have FHE as a childless couple were merely in order to produce the habit of Monday Family night so that once we did have children, we could teach them the gospel).

Our lesson was on being grateful for our blessings. I had selected a picture of the prophet, a picture of the scriptures, a picture of the earth, and nature, and animals, etc. I had excercised my crayon and paper skills to draw a picture of our house and a picture of a table plentifully spread with food. We went to the temple grounds to sit in the grass and play with the fountain as part of FHE.

The lesson went great. She paid attention for about 30 seconds, then I quickly summed it up out of necessesity and we were done. As we walked back to the car, I tried to incorportate how we can show that we are greatful for what we have. I said we can show we are grateful by eating the healthy food we are provided, giving our family members hugs, and by being nice to our toys, etc.

I don't know if it was related to our FHE lesson or not, but a few days later, Leah picked up a carrot during dinner and said "Hug! Hug!" and gave her carrot a hug. What a great way to be grateful!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I love it! What a great family home evening. I like that you did it, without insisting on her sitting through a 5 minute lesson when she's only ready for the 30 second variety. And I think visits to the temple grounds with children are wonderful.

We had a new thing for our FHE tonight. We invited a single sister in our ward over for dinner and FHE. It was fun, but also took a lot longer. Daniel missed his story time and reading in bed time tonight, and still went to bed late. Oh, well. We won't do it every week.

And I think you are right about the habit thing. It is amazing how being in the habit of doing the right things can really help you through those times you are just TOO TIRED or TOO BUSY or whatever.