Those Long Hours Do Pay Off

I had often wondered if the long hours I spent struggling to get my children to be reverent in church would ever be worth it. It did not take much for David, my seven-year-old, to get four-year-old Jeff and one-year-old Wade giggling, whispering, or fighting. Although each week I came with a new idea for helping my sons to be more reverent, I usually went home from church tired and discouraged. Many times I became angry and had to take one of the children out of the chapel so that others would not be disturbed.

But I was concerned about my approach to the problem. Did my continual disciplining make them feel unacceptable to our Heavenly Father? I decided that the next fast Sunday I would make my sons’ problem with reverence the object of my thoughts and prayer.

That Sunday, five minutes hadn’t passed before I felt that I should take David out of the chapel. But because I had been fasting and praying about this problem, I offered a quick prayer instead. “Father,” I asked, “he needs correction, but I want to do it in the right way. What should I do?”

The impression I felt was, “Be patient. Help him settle down as best you can.”

I tried to obey that impression and was able to keep things more under control than before. Then, toward the end of the meeting, I watched as David stood to bear his testimony.

At that moment I realized that, if I had acted on my first feelings, he probably would not have felt the Spirit which prompted him to bear his testimony.

That experience was given to me by our Heavenly Father to show me that, in raising my children, if I follow the Spirit I can help them to grow in the gospel and help them develop their own testimonies.

I have remembered that experience whenever I have been tempted to speak out with criticism or to doubt my children’s actions. It has tempered the punishments I have meted out and has helped me to remember love in times of anger.