Last Sunday I watched a talk by President Hinckley, I think given in 1997. It was a year before the 150th year celebration of the pioneers coming to Utah and he talked of their faith. He said that Brigham Young must have been a prophet to foresee staying in the valley. No one else would have stayed in such a desolate place and called it the promised land!
He also talked of a group of people that held the belief that surely President Young was smart enough to continue on to California for the gold rushes. But President Young told them otherwise. He said that they would be far richer staying here than by going to any gold mine there. When I listened, I understood it to mean actual rich as in taken care of materially and not just a richness of spiritual blessings. Perhaps I sound flippant in saying that? I just mean it's hard to remember your spiritual blessings when there's no food on the table and I understood this as saying they would actually be better taken care of by having the faith to stay where it looked like nothing was going to grow. Anyway, my point is...
When I turned the t.v. over to the talk, I hoped to hear something I needed to hear. I felt like it was addressed to me. We shall be richer by doing what we know is right than by following our fear to the supposed security and sureity of the "gold mines."
5 comments:
Great comparison to your life! So cool how Heavenly Father teaches us what we need to know in such a loving way!
It's a difficult journey for one reason or another most of the time. You need a lot of faith. Khrystine was reading about Eli B. Kelsey and his faith-challenging decisions about mining here and standing up for his friends who were being excommunicated from the church. That must have been really tough.
I really like your note on the sidebar about the errand of angels. That is very, very nice. Don't forget you are one.
I have been following your blog for a little while now and love seeing the pictures of your little one. With a screen name like 'grandma' how could I help but enjoy them.
I have a few thoughts that I would like to share with you and to have you and your husband think about.
I assume that you have some a religious background due to many of the things you write about as well as the authors of the words that touch you.
I have always loved the words of the Prophets and find great comfort in them. I love the way that they address the family unit and the way they outline the responsibilities of the parents of each of those units. As I read of your choice to stop work now that you have a baby I felt and understood some of your fears. The Prophets have always advised the moms to stay in the home “whenever” possible. This brings me to the concerns that I am wishing to express. I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but throughout your blog I haven’t seen any mention of your husband working. You have mentioned that you had a job (until recently resigning from that job) and you mentioned that you have needed to move in with his parents. Living with in-laws or parents can be a challenge even in the best of situations. (Been there – done that) You also recently talked about getting on to the food stamps program. Being a tax payer and someone who is contributing to your food stamps – I ask this one question. Are you both doing everything possible to support yourselves and get on your own to build this family you have now started? That might sound harsh and I am sorry if it is – however, if you take a look at the words of the Prophets, they have told us over and over again to be strong, to have faith and to work really hard to support ourselves and to meet our needs. Again, let me back up why I am asking you this question. You haven’t mentioned that your husband is working and that he is trying to support his family.
I am not trying to judge you. Truly I’m not. I’ve been where you were before you went on to the food stamps. I come from a family where my parents raised all of my siblings and myself to be self reliant and to take care of our needs. Not to expect that someone else will do it when we are capable of doing it ourselves. There is a certain amount of pride – not an arrogant kind of pride – in being able to buy your own groceries and pay your own bills with the money you have earned ‘from the sweat of your brow’. Sometimes that provision comes from the state, but only when NO OTHER OPTION is available. Don’t look for the easy way out – make sure that you both are doing whatever you can to make it on your own – that is when you will find yourselves grow closer as a family. It is so easy to get caught up in the easy way out and SO HARD to get back on the track of being self reliant once you let someone else take care of you.
“Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.”
http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,161-1-11-1,00.html
I am here again to say that as far as parental obligation goes, it is a very sad time that comes when a parent cannot just take care of her children. We reached that point a few months ago. Even if that child is over 20 years old and married, it is very difficult to know that she has been quite hungry everyday now since the baby was born. Work is difficult to come by and many individuals would rather be hungry than ask for support they believe it is their own obligation to get.
I for one, as a mother and grandmother, find myself relieved to know the church and/or state will step up to the plate to support it's mothers and children when times demand such. We should remember that it is our duty to feed the poor and care for 'widows and orphans." Let's not lose our compassion in a flury of political immoveability.
"To do well those thing which God ordained to be the common lot of all man-kind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman...
We should never be discouraged in those daily tasks which God has ordained to the common lot of man...
Let us not be trying to substitute an artificial life for the true one."
— Joseph F. Smith
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