Family Home Daytime

I’ve been feeling pretty pressured lately to step it up at home spiritually, and that’s mostly because we’ve been having kind of a rough time lately, the kids mostly. We moved and school started again and my divorce was finalized, which means that their dad has pretty much walked away, doesn’t really maintain contact at all, where as he was calling every couple of weeks before. So all that put together, and it makes for some insecure kids, and added onto that is unstable babysitting while I’m at work and my daughter getting a little bit older and starting with the attitude and she has not been treating her brother very well, in fact he said sadly the other day “nobody loves me.” It was heartbreaking. I work so hard to take care of my kids, I never go out, I’m either with them or at work, I try so hard to be patient and to speak their love language so they can feel how much I love them, and then to still hear my son say that was so awful. So what more can I do that I haven’t already done? Daily prayer, daily scripture study, and weekly Family Home Evening was the answer, given to me through many different avenues, listening to the Ensign on the way to work, reading and writing for this blog, and a friend who gave me some perspective. So I started on Tuesday, determined to be obedient. We said prayers before the kids went to school, then when we came home; we had “Family Home Daytime,” you know to be accurate. The kids get out of school early on Tuesdays so we have an extra hour and so that’s when I’m going to do our FHE. It went well, we did a “welcome run” which I don’t know how it started but my parents used to do it in our FHE. It was funny; I asked my dad “do you want to help us do the welcome run for the first time?” His answer “but do we even have a sombrero?” So we picked just a regular hat, the person puts on the hat, and then my dad says “(name) we’re glad you’re here, come on in and we’ll give you a cheer!” Then the person with the hat runs around the kitchen and everyone claps. It was fun and we did that, then a short song, a prayer, and then we read out of the Friend magazine, had another prayer and then some soda, as is the tradition. So yesterday, we had morning prayers, then when we got home, we read out of the actual Book of Mormon, not the kids illustrated edition, but the wordy, no pictures version. We only made it through 5 verses, and then a miracle happened, both kids read, and they did awesome, even my little boy who is still learning how to read. He was so excited to read those little parts. My daughter, who has been mean to her brother, was telling him “good job!” They were getting along and they both even went to bed perfectly for my parents. After reading the scriptures and talking about it, we prayed and I went to work. So today, we again prayed before they went to school, and then after school we read the Book of Mormon again, and again the kids wanted to be the readers and I was shocked at how well they did because some of the words are really hard. Then again, a miracle happened. Afterward, I was talking to me dad and my kids went running upstairs to play together. They were chasing each other and screaming happily, and even fist fighting a little bit, but there was no crying, only happiness and smiles and little baby joy! They haven’t played with each other like that in months! It honestly was a miracle. Then when I called on my lunch break they were both happy and my mom said that they had behaved so very well, and that they were so good tonight. Happy kids, happy parents, happy mama. It honestly is such a miracle. I will be making prayer, scripture study and family home daytime a priority from now on. I am so grateful that the Lord loves my family enough to seep through even my ignorant heart and that he has given me the strength and motivation and even more importantly, the instance peace and the instance results so that even someone as dense as I could make the connection and not make the commitment.