Love. Healing. Help. Hope.

Well...it's been a busy day of housekeeping and PTO stuff and thinking about JACOB POST, who turns six today (love, love, love you, Jakers! Happy Birthday). I was so glad to find that our family scripture study lent itself easily to a family home evening lesson (yes folks, we are just tearin' through the Book of Mormon, each reading a verse before dinner--we're on 1Nephi 8 on March 1st!).

As you may know, chapter 8 is Lehi's dream, and it's a symbolic and picturesque dream. So before dinner, we read through the dream, then after dinner, we helped the kids each draw their own picture of what Lehi described, then we read a little bit of chapters 11-13 to find out what the dream meant. I love so many things in these chapters that my kids aren't ready to hear about--like how Nephi says I don't understand everything God says, but I know He loves His children, or how the first thing the angel shows Nephi when he wants to know what "the Love of God" means is beautiful Mary and her baby. Love indeed.

(May I just say that my favorite things about this really beautiful rendition by Addie are (a) Sariah's pink frock and (b) Nephi's Vanilla Ice hair? Addie did a really great job and seems to grasp the symbols of the dream. I'm proud of her!)
(Heidi wanted to make sure that dogs could walk the straight and narrow path---she said "most dogs choose the right anyway, mom." )(James was over- tired most of the time and having a tantrum, so his mists of darkness are rather prominent)

And this FHE ties in so nicely with our Relief Society lesson yesterday, which was a review of THIS talk by Elder Holland (it's always about Holland, isn't it?). You should read it. Better yet, you should listen to it cause it's fierce (in the best sense of the word). And then sing hymn #274 to yourself, all 5 verses. Cuz then you will feel like I feel right now: so humbled and thankful for the plain and precious truth that will (I testify!) "safely guide us through!"

"And hand o'er hand the rod along, through each succeeding day

With earnest prayer and hopeful song, we'll still pursue our way...

"Afar we see the golden rest to which the rod will guide

Where with the angels bright and blest forever we'll abide!"

[Coincidentally, that song reminds me of THIS song, and for the record: I WANT IT SUNG JOYFULLY AT MY FUNERAL!!!! "In that far-off sweet forever, just beyond the shining river, when they ring the golden bells for you and me!"]

FROM ELDER HOLLAND: Love. Healing. Help. Hope. The power of Christ to counter all troubles in all times—including the end of times. That is the safe harbor God wants for us in personal or public days of despair. That is the message with which the Book of Mormon begins, and that is the message with which it ends, calling all to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.” That phrase—taken from Moroni’s final lines of testimony, written 1,000 years after Lehi’s vision—is a dying man’s testimony of the only true way.