FHE Payday

Last week my mom and I taught a lesson about Family Home Evening (FHE) to a few of the women in my church congregation. Family Home Evening is something that was started by a 100 years ago, and something that has really blessed my life. 

According to President Joseph F. Smith, a man I believe to have been a prophet, the purpose of family home evening is to take an evening out of the week and spent time as a family, strengthening each other spiritually. These were and are his instructions:

"Families were to take time to PRAY and SING together, READ the scriptures, TEACH the gospel to one another, and PARTICIPATE in other activities that would build family unity."

My parents did a pretty good job of having consistent FHE when I was a child, and their resolve strengthened as my siblings and I entered adolescence. My friends started calling my mom the "FHE Nazi" when I turned down invitations to Monday night activities (although almost all of my friends were the same religion as me). I may have been bitter about those missed activities at first, but I am now so grateful. Because of my parents, FHE was a habit, and Scott and I were able to start our marriage off with weekly FHE. We haven't always been awesome at it, but for the past five years, we've worked our tails off to make sure FHE happens. Our children don't know any different.

Does that mean they listen? Rarely. Does it mean that we always feel the spirit and no one ever goes to bed without refreshments? Haha. Our nights are chaotic; I don't expect that to change much as they get older.

Occasionally, however, we have a moment during FHE that helps me realize that these efforts of ours are making a difference for our children. We had one of those experiences tonight. I've known the topic of the lesson for three weeks now, but I just wasn't coming up with anything. I felt like a fraud. I spent an hour last week preaching to my neighbors about how important FHE is and how planning a lesson is so easy, you can do it in five minutes or less. After all, this is something God wants us to do, so we are entitled to his help, right?

Yeah, I seem to have forgotten that last part. My inspiration came less than an hour before we sat down together on the family room floor and started in on a off-key, off-lyric version of "Book of Mormon Stories."

But the idea that God gave me worked so much better than I would have expected. Wherefore didst thou doubt, oh ye of little faith?

Our family theme for the year is a scripture found in Doctrine and Covenants 19:23:

I made word strips with each of the three phrases and told the kids that we were going to have a treasure hunt and if they found the three pieces to the puzzle, then they would find a wonderful promise. They found the clues rather quickly: "Learn of me" on the portrait of Christ, "Listen to my words" on the piano, "Walk in the meekness of my Spirit" under Daddy's shoes. They fit the three pieces together and I gave them a whole paper that said, "You shall have peace in me."

At this point, since the treasure hunt was over, Sly went back to being more interested in his legos than the lesson and Birdie (trying out new code names for #3. She has a killer bird call trilling sound) rolled, lunged, and pivoted all over in an effort to take away Sly's legos. Luckily, Kevin was still mostly listening, so I asked her, "Do you know what peace means?"

At first she got a confused look on her face. I was about to jump in with the answer, but I was restrained. Within a few seconds she said, "it's....a good feeling."

"When did you feel that feeling?"

"Yesterday."

Yesterday, while Scott and I were tag-teaming feeding Sophie and making dinner, Kevin completely took us by surprise by picking up the living room without being asked, told, or begged. She didn't get mad at her brother for not helping. She simply left the toys he was playing with alone and cleaned the rest of the room up.

I walked into the room to tell Sly and Kevin that it was time for dinner. The carpet seemed to sparkle. I could actually see it. Even the glorious scene before me couldn't compare to the smile on my daughter's face when she saw my reaction. I was nearly in tears. I am always begging and pleading for help cleaning up, dragging the kids along as I try to teach by example how to take care of our possessions and our home. Most of the time, it falls on me. Homemaking and homekeeping have proven exhausting for me, and here was a light--there was help! There was hope!

You may think I am being over-dramatic, but this small experience means the world to me. That night, as I was tucking her into bed, I asked her how she felt after cleaning up. She told me she had a good feeling, and that she was happy. She explained that her church teachers had taught her about the things Jesus would do, and that she thought she would give it a try.

Apparently her experiment was a success.  And when she brought up her experience in family home evening, I knew that she was getting it. And I  learned that this verse is a formula for obtaining peace. This verse was an example of the if/then principle often found in scripture when Christ is speaking: if you do this, then I will do this.

Together, we talked about how she came to feel that peace. First, she learned of Christ. She went to church to learn about Jesus. Secondly, she listened to his words. She paid attention to what her teachers were saying and internalized this knowledge of the Savior. Third, and perhaps most importantly, she walked in the meekness of his Spirit. She acted on what she'd learned and listened to. She had Christ's spirit as she meekly tested his words and followed his example.

And not only did she find peace--her parents found it too.