|
My old seminary scriptures |
I have vivid memories from my childhood of my parents waking up all of us kids to have family scripture study at 5am.
I'm not sure if the 5am time was so we could have it before my dad needed to head off to work, or if it was because they wanted to teach us good early morning habits, or if it was simply that my parents enjoyed torturing us.
Whatever the case may be, I admit, it was not my favorite experience.
Then I turned fourteen and started attending seminary. Early morning seminary to be exact, which started at 5:50am. (seminary is a religion class that high school students of our faith attend for those four years)
Fast forward to today.
Here I am, a mother of four young children, doing my best to teach my children good values and principles, and the importance of prayer and scripture study.
And that catching bugs to put into the refrigerator may not be the best of ideas.
While we do have family prayer every single night with our children, reading the scriptures together is pretty hit and miss, stop and go, up and down.
And it is usually far from reverent. Screaming, fighting, wiggling, squirming, and any other word that can be used to describe young children and their ability to hold still, could all be applied to our experiences.
I could probably sell circus tickets.
And popcorn.
But after watching
General Conference this weekend, my husband decided we should start having family scripture study in the morning instead of at night in an effort to be more consistent.
At first, I was a bit hesitant. Okay, let's be honest, what mother WANTS to wake their kids up early?
Besides my own mother of course.
And what about the off chance that they actually sleep in, who wants to mess with that?
But truth be told, by 7:15am, my kids are usually up anyway, so I agreed.
This morning, was our first attempt.
And you know what? It was amazing!
There wasn't a dadgum smidgen of difference in the kid's attitude or behavior. They still wiggled and squirmed and fought and whined.
Anyone care to purchase a circus ticket?
I'll throw in the popcorn for free.
And it wasn't five minutes after we finished family prayer, and Luke went off to work that the boys were fist fighting over an apple.
An apple!? I mean come on, it should have at least been a cookie! An apple isn't worth the effort.
The screaming that ensued was incredible. I'm finally seeing my father's wisdom in his wearing industrial ear muffs to block out the noise of eight loud children.
I'm serious, he really did. I'll show you a picture sometime.
I understand the long-term benefits of our efforts. But hang it all, it would sure be nice if they would suddenly turn into sweet little angels.
What? A girl can dream!
*Update: We have discovered that reading together at the kitchen table instead of in the living room, really cuts down on the wiggles!