THIS POST IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES. I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO INTRODUCING YOU TO A COUPLE OF GUEST BLOGGERS, ALL OF THEM COMMENTING ON THE FAMILY PROCLAMATION, AROUND THE THEME: FAMILY IS CENTRAL.
~THE FAMILY IS CENTRAL: CENTRAL TO HAPPINESS
~THE FAMILY IS CENTRAL: A SACRED INSTITUTION
~THE FAMILY IS CENTRAL: CENTRAL TO FULFILLMENT
The family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children -- central to the Plan of Happiness. Families are a gift from God, designed to nurture and protect us here and now, and to fit us for life in His kingdom in the hereafter.
Individual progression is fostered in the family, which is “central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” The home is to be God’s laboratory of love and service. There a husband is to love his wife, a wife is to love her husband, and parents and children are to love one another. Throughout the world, the family is increasingly under attack. If families fail, many of our political, economic, and social systems will also fail. And if families fail, their glorious eternal potential cannot be realized.
Our Heavenly Father wants husbands and wives to be faithful to each other and to esteem and treat their children as an heritage from the Lord. In such a family we study the scriptures and pray together. And we fix our focus on the temple. There we receive the highest blessings that God has in store for His faithful children.
-Russell M. Nelson, April 2008
When I think about our Father's plan, how we lived with Him, and then came to earth to receive a body, to be tested and to be challenged, and all the growth opportunities, the way that we are to live together in love, and when life ends, we are to have loved much and to weep for the loss of those who leave us, and return to Him again. When I think of all that, family is there in every aspect, every step of the way. Family reaches to the very heart of the Plan, so much so that if families fail the earth is cursed, and wasted at His coming.
One of my sisters has sheet music for a song, Keeping Sheep, that compares parenting to shepherding, and talks about all the voices that say that it's not important, it's expendable, it's beneath us. It's a beautiful song, and now that we've got kids, we can't sing that thing without bawling our eyes out. This is my favorite part:
So many voices say to me,
“A sheep-fold is no place to be.
Your time in there is dull and slow,
And lambs leave very little room for you to grow.”
Oh, If I ever start to stray,
Deceived by thoughts of greener pastures,
Remind me Lord, that keeping sheep
Will lead to happier ever-afters.
Will lead to happier ever-afters.
God works in plain and simple things. The small, the weak, the over-looked. These are His stock in trade. Like ordinary homes, and ordinary, tired parents. He speaks in a still, small voice, one that you have to actively pay attention to in order to hear. And the value of things that He asks us to do is often like that little voice: easy to overlook.
Children need their families. Not preschools, not fancy clothes, not Stuff in all its assorted forms. They need their parents, their time, their attention. Mine need me, and yours need you. Parenting is intense, and it can be really, really hard, and there's soooo many people who want to tell us that it's not really worthwhile. But when we find the heat of opposition is the hottest, that's where the best work for the Kingdom is done. Satan doesn't oppose the stuff that doesn't matter.
Families matter. The traditional family is key to our Father's plan for our happiness.
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