Family Home Evening Moments: “When the Children Were Small”
Contributed By R. Scott Lloyd, Church News staff writer
Family home evening is a blessing for families in this day and age.
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We have five married children, and family home evening was one of the things we believed in all through the years.
Our children have many wonderful memories of family home evening.
One week, my husband and I had been talking about the fact that the children, then ages 3 through 12, were beginning to bicker among themselves, and we needed to discuss it in our family home evening. After a song and prayer, he looked at me for the discussion.
I told the children we thought there was too much bickering and asked what we should do about it. The older ones looked at the floor. All was silent.
Our three-year-old daughter, sitting on my lap, said, very loud, “Kiss.”
The other children began to giggle, but my husband said, “Now wait a minute. Love is the way to solve this. Let’s talk about ways to love one another more.”
Years later, some bullying was happening on our street. Our lesson one night was on loving our neighbors. Our youngest daughter piped up with, “Well, that depends on who they are.”
We were able to share some scriptural teachings from Jesus that helped convey the lesson.
Among the best lessons our children remember from the family home evening manual was one in which I made flower petals, stems, and centers.
Each person got a stem and a petal for each of the other family members and wrote upon the respective petal what he or she liked about that member of the family. Each then glued together his or her own flower with the petals received from others in the family. A very positive feeling of love came to each member of the family.
Then, there was one on trust in each other and in Heavenly Father. With eyes shut, each family member walked through the house with a hand on another’s shoulder.
The lesson discussed the fact that Heavenly Father knows everything before we experience it and we do not, so we need to pray to Him and He will guide us, and it really caused some discussion among the children during the week. They kept reminding each other to ask Him before decisions were made.
What a blessing family home evening is for families in this day and age.
—Eloise M. Despain, Medford 3rd Ward, Central Point Oregon Stake
