This post is mostly for me, so I can remember how I am feeling right now. It's not meant as a Toot My Own Horn post by any means. I just need to get what I've learned down so I can remember why I'm doing this.
Every single night I pray. During the day I pray a lot, too. The night prayers always include and the daytime prayers are usually entirely me asking for help with the kids.Specifically Emma and Jeremy. Megan, I pray for, but not with the same urgency and tears. She's my "Good Child" although she has her moments. Emma and Jeremy are the ones that keep me on my toes and frustrate me constantly. Especially Emma.
I pray all the time for God to bless me with some amazing piece of advice or knowledge, to bless me with some wisdom, that will open my eyes and help me understand my children and know how to get through to them. That He will bless me with patience, a more gentle voice, understanding, etc.
It never happens.
I might come across a scripture that helps me for a day, or a week even, before I'm back to being tired, frustrated, and still feeling confused and hopeless.
Sunday as we were on our way to Church we were stopped at the intersection right by our house and as I stared at the red light, waiting for it to change, I thought about revelations. God doesn't grant us new revelations like He did so long ago because we aren't all doing much with what He's already given us. This is something I've heard since primary, that was reiterated in my youth, and have been reminded of probably once or twice a year in Sunday School. It's something I've thought of on my own sometimes.
I realized, while waiting for the light to turn green, that I'm not consistent with a family scripture study routine, we don't have family prayer every day, or even every week for that matter. We are ok with Family Home Evening every week, but there's definitely room for improvement. At Church, we are told these are three of the biggest things we can do to help our families. And I know that, but we haven't been doing them like we should.
If I'm not making these a priority, why should God bother giving me new revelations, more help? Sunday night we had a family meeting and I shared my thoughts with the family. We are all committed to doing better now. We're waking up with Nathan before he goes to school and reading a chapter from The Book of Mormon, then having family prayer. Mornings and I aren't friends, but if we put it off til after dinner, it won't happen because we'll be too anxious to put the kids to bed and we'll be crazy with getting lunches and clothes ready for school the next day.
Today is only Tuesday, but we're determined. Yesterday and today have been better. For instance, Emma has told Nathan and me (separately) that she wants to be more obedient and we can see that she is actually trying. There has been just as much bickering and fighting between the older three, but it's been smaller scale. The kids have actually cleaned up their toys.If we feel instances of extreme frustration, so far it's only been at night when we've gone through the whole day relatively without raised voices.
I'm so grateful for personal revelation. Even if it's something I already knew and wasn't paying attention to. I really feel like this is something that is going to make a huge difference in our family.
