{ :) }

A member of our ward in his talk told us about how they were having a family home evening about the ten commandments. They talked about honoring your father and mother. Then he asked: "Is there a commandment about your siblings?" Their young son answered: "Thou shalt not kill."

:)

{"Becometh As a Child" by Neal A. Maxwell}

"All about us we see the bitter and abundant harvest from permissiveness. A perceptive person has acknowledged: "The struggle to live ethically without God has left us not with the just and moral order we imagined but with disorder and confusion". (Peter Marin, Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1995)

"The more what is politically correct seeks to replace what God has declared correct, the more ineffective approaches to human problems there will be, all reminding us of C.S.Lewis's metaphor about those who run around with fire extinguishers in times of flood. For instance, there are increasing numbers of victims of violence and crime, yet special attention is paid to the rights of criminals. Accompanying an ever increasing addiction to pornography are loud alarms against censorship. Rising illegitimacy destroys families and threatens the funding capacities of governments; nevertheless, chastity and fidelity are mocked."

"I have no hesitancy... in stating that unless checked, permissiveness, by the end of its journey, will cause humanity to stare in mute disbelief at its awful consequences."

"Ironically, as some people become harder, they use softer words to describe dark deeds... Needless abortion, for instance, is a "reproductive health procedure," which is an even more "spongy expression" than "termination of pregnancy"."

"Church members will live in this wheat-and-tares situation until the Millenium. Some real tares even masquerade as wheat, including the few eager individuals who lecture the rest of us about Church doctrines in which they no longer believe. They criticize the use of Church resources to which they no longer contribute. They condescendingly seek to cousel the Brethren whom they no longer sustain... they leave the Church,  but they cannot leave the Church alone. Like the throng on the ramparts of the "great and spacious building," they are intensely and busily preoccupied, pointing fingers of scorn at the steadfast iron-rodders.

Considering their ceaseless preoccupation, one wonders, is there no diversionary activity available to them, especially in such a large building - like a bowling alley? Perhaps in their mockings and beneath the stir are repressed doubts of their doubts. In any case, given the perils of popularity, Brigham Young advised that this "people must be kept where the finger of scorn can be pointed at them"."

..."the arrogance of critics must be met by the meekness and articulateness of believers."

..."the exhilarations of discipleship exceed its burdens. Hence, when journeying through our Sinai, we are nourished in the Bountiful-like oases of the Restoration."

"It has been a privilege to seal several adopted children to Nan and Dan Barker, now of Arizona. Some time ago Nate, then just over three, said: "Mommy, there is another little girl who is supposed to come to our family. She has dark hair and dark eyes and lives a long way from here."

The wise mother asked, "How do you know this?"

"Jesus told me, upstairs."

The mother noted, "We don't have an upstairs," but quickly sensed the significance of what had been communicated. After much travail and many prayers, the Barker family were in a sealing room in the Salt Lake Temple in the fall of 1995 - where a little girl with dark hair and dark eyes, from Kazakhstan, was sealed to them for time and eternity."

..."as we cross our Sinai, including in those moments when we must "be still, and know that I am God". Such submissive stillness is necessary, because the process of consecration is not one of explanation. Only "after the trial of our faith" does the full witness come..."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

May 1996 Ensign

{motherhood}

(image found via google image search)

I wrote a poem! Seriously? Me? One day it just came. I'm sure it needs more work but I thought I'd share it here.

Motherhood

My eyes are tired

From lack of sleep.

Some nights are long,

Worries run deep.

My hands are tired,

They've done so much.

Lives have been blessed

By a motherly touch.

My mind is tired,

So much to do.

I reach and reach

These little ones to teach.

A baby, a toddler,

Now in school...

The years go by fast.

Oh how to make them last?

Life can be hard,

There are many tears.

But the Spirit conquers

All my fears.

In God I'll trust

When life gets rough.

I'll do my best.

It is enough.

My God I'll praise,

His plan is great.

My mother's role

I'll celebrate.

My heart is full.

My joy is deep.

These precious memories

I'll always keep.

{take especial care of your family}

"Note several terrible trends which, if uncorrected, will produce an even worse coalition of consequences.

*In ten years, one-half of all children born in America will be illegitimate.

*More and more children have no functioning fathers. Already 70% of our juvenile criminals come from fatherless homes.

*Less than half of all children born today will live continuously with their own mother and father throughout childhood."

*One-fourth of all adolescents... contract a sexually transmitted disease before they graduate from high school."

"Healthy, traditional families are becoming an endangered species!"

"As parenting declines, the need for policing increases. There will always be a shortage of police if there is a shortage of effective parents! Likewise, there will not be enough prisons if there are not enough good homes."

"Latter-day Saints therefore have no choice but to stand up and to speak up whenever the institution of the family is concerned, even if we are misunderstood, resented, or brushed aside."

"However, as Latter-day Saints, we need to do better in our families - much better! There should be less wringing of hands and more loving arms around our families."

..."there is an emerging but unjustified tendency to treat children as if they have the capacity for unrestricted adult experience."

..."we stress again and again the available remedies of family prayers, family home evenings, and family scripture study. Moreover, personal revelation regarding parenting can provide customized guidance and reassurance!"

"Applying basic remedies will take some time and will not fix everything immediately. What could be more basic, however, than "love at home", when annually in America there are four million reports of domestic violence, rivaling the number of births in America! Violence in America now kills "the equivalent of a classroomful" of children "every two days."

"In the healthy family, first and best, we can learn to listen, forgive, praise, and to rejoice in the achievements of others. There also we can learn to tame our egos, work, repent, and love. In families with spiritual perspective, yesterday need not hold tomorrow hostage. If we sometimes act the fool, loving families know this is not oru last act; the curtain is not rung down."

"Parents and grandparents, please scrutinize your schedules and priorities in order to ensure that life's prime relationships get more prime time! Even consecrated and devoted Brigham Young was once told by the Lord, "Take especial care of your family" (D&C 126:3) Sometimes, it is the most conscientious who need this message the most!"

"As the number of dysfunctional families increases, their failures will spill into already burdened schools and streets. It is not a pretty scene even now."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

May 1994 Ensign



{brightness of hope}

"For some years, brothers and sisters, there has been an increasing and profound sense of existential despair in the world... Holocausts, famine, pestilence, and tides of refugees have taken a terrible toll on human hope, with much of that toll coming from man-made, avoidable disasters... despair comes of iniquity!"

"A coalition of consequences is emerging. As prophesied, the love of many waxes cold (see Matthew 24:12). Even those affectionally secure themselves can sense the chill in the air."

"Shame is often replaced by the arrogance of those morally adrift, including strutting celebrities whose outer boldness camouflages their inner emptiness. ...so much hollow laughter..."

"Just as doubt, despair, and desensitization go together, so do faith, hope, and charity. The latter, however, must be carefully and constantly nurtured, whereas despair, like dandelions, needs so little encouragement to sprout and spread. Despair comes so naturally to the natural man!"

"Significally, those who look forward to a next and better world are usually "anxiously engaged" in improving this one..."

..."brightness of hope" produces illuminated individuals. Their luminosity is seen, and things are also seen by it! Such hope permits us to "press forward" even when dark clouds oppress. Sometimes in the deepest darkness there is no external light - only an inner light to guide and to reassure."

"Hope helps us to walk by faith, not by sight. This can actually be safer."

"Genuine hope is urgently needed in order to be more loving even as the love of many waxes cold; more merciful, even when misunderstood or misrepresented; more holy, even as the world ripens in iniquity; more courteous and patient in a coarsening and curt world; and more full of heartfelt hope, even when other men's hearts fail them."

"Tower of Pisa is a persistent rebuke to architectural pessimism, so parental hope - by refusing to topple merely because of the gravity of the current family situation - is a repudiation of despair. Giving parents never give up hope!"

"Though otherwise "lively", hope stands quietly with us at funerals. Our tears are just as wet, but not because of despair. Rather, they are tears of appreciation evoked by poignant separation. They will change, erelong, to tears of glorious anticipation. Yet the emptiness is so real and so restless it initiates a retroactive inventory of what is now so painfully missing, doing so, however, while forecasting fulness and resplendent reunion!"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

November 1994 Ensign



{deny yourselves of all ungodliness}

..."consider the subsequent and sobering tragedy of children having children, of unwed mothers, of children without parents, of hundreds of thousands of fatherless children, and of rampant spousal infidelity... Yet carnalists are unwilling to deny themselves, even though all of society suffers from an awful avalanche of consequences!"

"In Proverbs, we read, "For the commandment is a lamp". Once darkened, a society loses its capacity to distinguish between right and wrong... A society which permits anything will eventually lose everything!"

"Gross sins arise ominously and steadily out of the swamp of self-indulgence and self-pity."

"Sadly, too, a few envy the wicked."

"Ironically, in all their eagerness to experience certain things, hedonists, become desensitized."

..."some worry only about holes in the ozone layer, while the fabric of many families who lack the lamp resembles Swiss cheese."

"Many things will not get better until we have better families, but this will require much more self-denial, not less."

..."end up with more protected pornography than protected children."

..."urging self-restraint on hedonists is like discouraging Dracula from hanging around the blood bank!"

"All things considered, brothers and sisters, to whom did David deal the greater blow, Goliath or Uriah? Or himself?"

"...God's second commandment, love thy neighbor, clearly leaves no room for racism."

"So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed!"

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

May 1995 Ensign

{sins of omission}

"Once the telestial sins are left behind and henceforth avoided, the focus falls ever more on the sins of omission. These omissions signify a lack of qualifying fully for the celestial kingdom. Only greater consecration can correct these omissions, which have consequences just as real as do the sins of commission. Many of us thus have sufficient faith to avoid the major sins of commission, but not enough faith to sacrifice our distracting obsessions or to focus on our omissions."

"Most omissions occur because we fail to get outside ourselves."

"...only by aligning our wills with God's is full happiness to be found. Anything less results in a lesser portion."

"As one's will is increasingly submissive to the will of God, he can receive inspiration and revelation so much needed to help meet the trials of life."

"Do we understand - really comprehend - that Jesus knows and understands when we are stressed and perplexed? ...perfect empathy... knows how to succor us... Since the Most Innocent suffered the most, our own cries of "Why?" cannot match His."

"Each of us might well ask, "In what ways am I shrinking or holding back?" Meek introspection may yield some bold insights! For example, we can tell much by what we have already willingly discarded along the pathway of discipleship. It is the only pathway where littering is permissible, even encouraged."

..."trusting that God has made "ample provision" beforehand to achieve all His purposes, including His purposes in our lives."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

November 1995 Ensign