My name is Lori Thornbrue. My husband is Steve. We sold our home in Daybreak in May and were graciously invited to move in with our wonderful daughter, Lisa and her roommate, our quasi-daughter Vonicia while determining the whats and wheres of the next stage in our life. Steve and I will soon be celebrating our 37th anniversary. We have six incredible children, five daughters and one son. They have all graduated from college, except our youngest, who will graduate from Utah State with her Elementary Education degree in December. We have fourteen grandchildren, with grandchild #15 due to enter the world at any minute, or by Tuesday at the latest. I spent thirty three years as a mother with children in my home. Being a mother defines who I am and what I do. My husband, my children, their spouses and my grandchildren are my greatest joy, my important work, my life. The first ward we moved into without children, I felt as though people couldn’t get to know me unless they knew those wonderful spirits who had graced Steve’s and my life, and brought us such joy. Here, you know the wonderful daughter of ours, Lisa, and so I feel a bit more whole.
My talk today is based on the Conference talk by Rosemary Wixom entitled “Stay on the Path”. The talk focuses on what we can do to keep our children, ALL children, centered firmly on the path of truth and righteousness. This task is a job for all people: those who are parents with children in the home, those who have never been parents, those whose children have left the home. Whether single, married, a large family or no family; it is all of our responsibility to help the children of this world find their way back to their Father in Heaven. Sister Wixom states, “Each of us can reach out to hold on to the children. We can stop, kneel down, and look into their eyes and feel of their innate desire to follow the Savior. Take hold of their hands. Walk with them. It is our chance to anchor them on the path of faith. When WE are holding tight to the iron rod, we are in a position to place our hands over theirs and walk the strait and narrow path together.”
I hope to give examples today of how this can be done.
Steve has been such a wonderful example to me of the way to treat children with such respect and honor. We were recently called as Primary teachers to the CTR 5’s class. Two weeks ago we introduced ourselves to the class and had the children tell us their names and one thing they liked to do. Last week, as the children sat down, I could barely remember their names, but Steve welcomed each one by name and said, “Hello Ella, who loves to draw. Welcome Kanoi who likes to play tag. Zach, did you play with your dinosaurs this week?, etc.” Although just five and six years old, the children felt his genuine love and interest in their lives by his validating and remembering something that was important to each one of them. Their grins and an extra measure of reverence was the children's response to this simple gesture of care.
My own children were so easy to love and care for. They were born obedient. They loved me. I loved them. They loved each other. There was no contention in our home. They were quiet children. They were raised television and computer ‘free’, and I read to them several hours every day. They played and played and played. They did homework together. As teens they were delightful. Not one was ever grounded, or even in trouble. They all got superior grades. My sister, when visiting, laughed and said, “Your house is amazing: it always smells like homemade bread; and the only sound you ever hear are pages turning.” Heavenly Father must have known my weakness in parenting, so he sent me perfect children.
I know that life is not like that for everyone. My third child had a son who was born angry. The first words out of his mouth at age 18 months were “I hate you.” {Something he had never heard at home}. He was a difficult baby, a difficult toddler, a difficult little child. He did not like to be touched. He could not be cuddled. He would never kneel, fold his arms, sit to listen to stories, or want to pray. When he was three, my daughter was in the Primary Presidency. The Primary program was that day, and I had called to find out how it went. She said, “Jarom stood at the rail and made faces, took off his suit jacket, threw it over the railing, and then slid on his stomach down the stairs —I was ‘so’ proud” This fantastic daughter, with deep faith, kept patiently working with him. Everyday there were scripture stories. Everyday there was prayer. Every meal was prayed over. Church was faithfully attended. Everyday he was treated with kindness, patience, and love. Progress was minuscule enough to seem non existent. Her best friend said, “I don’t want your son to play with my son any more until your son isn’t so rough.” This daughter explained to her friend how she needed her help. This boy of hers needed positive examples. She and her husband could not raise him alone. Her son needed friends, and other adults to help him learn how to live a happy life. She taught her friend ways to more easily handle him. Her friend rallied and became a true help with this difficult little boy. I just got back from visiting in Portland with them. Jarom is in first grade, and one of the kindest, sweetest first graders I have ever met. He is a kind brother. He is quiet. He is polite. He loves helping. He was a joy to be around.
It was the determined hard work, faith and prayers of his parents, the patience and help of friends, the extra patience and love of Primary teachers, and the non judgmental and loving attitude of ward members who all helped to bring to pass a transformation of one little soul, who could so easily have stayed on the unhappier pathway.
We can teach little children from the time they are first born how miraculous and sacred their bodies are. How easy it is to say to a child, “My, isn’t it wonderful that Heavenly Father blessed you with such great feet that help you run so fast.” For several years when my grandson would get a cut or scrape, I would tell him to watch his cut over the next few days and see how amazing Heavenly Father made his body. The blood will clot, new skin cells will grow, and soon you won’t even be able to remember where that owie was. The other day when I was there he fell down and scraped both knees. This 5 year olds first comments after “I need two bandaids” was, “My amazing body is going to make my knees all better, and then he added, “Thank you Heavenly Father for my amazing body.” A child who learns to feel that way about himself is not likely to abuse his gift of a physical body.
My son and his wife have four children, three daughters and a son. The oldest daughter was very nervous about this school year. She was going into third grade, which meant she would not be on the same playground or the same recess schedule as her best friend, her younger sister, who would be in second grade. The anxiety became so severe, that she cried and cried every night the week before school started. One night, just a few days before school was to begin, they could not calm her down, and it was getting late. She was not only anxious, but exhausted as well. Allie, my daughter in law, finally said, “Let me teach you how the scriptures work.” She took this precious little daughter down to the sofa, put her arm around her and said, “Open the scriptures to anywhere.” Marie happened to open the scriptures to Matthew 7:9 and she read:
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask abread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, abeing evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
That little section of scriptures was comforting to my little granddaughter, but her mother didn’t stop there.
She said, “Reading the scriptures will help you in various ways. Either the passage you read will be the answer you were looking for. I think this scripture that you just read was like that. Heavenly Father wants to give you good gifts. He wants you to be happy. If we ask for him to help you make new friends and have good days at school, He will help you. Your daddy and I will help you with ideas on how to make new friends. [As an aside, this daughter in law bought some Chinese jump ropes, went to the school during recess during the first week of school, and taught Marie’s recess mates how to play Chinese jump rope. Heavenly Father wants us to be proactive and do our part, too.]
Then she continued. Maybe the scriptures you read won’t say anything that was helpful to your particular situation, but the act of reading the scriptures is calming, and peace will come into your heart. You might have to keep reading and reading until this happens, but I promise you that it will happen.
The third thing that might happen when reading your scriptures is that another idea, totally unrelated to what you are reading will pop into your head and that will be the answer you are seeking.
And then this beautiful mother bore her testimony of the power of the scriptures, and how the scriptures have helped her in her life.
She had taken her daughters hand in hers and given her daughter a good hand hold onto the iron rod.
My children who have children, have all had their children close together (such as four children in four years). Sacrament meeting for them became something less than a spiritual feast, and became more of an endurance test. My one daughter got tired of having so much to carry.....diaper bag, treats to entertain the children, books for them to read, things for them to draw with, etc., and then cleaning up the mess before rushing off to fulfill various callings, that she wisely called a halt. She brings nothing for the children to do. They go to church and they sit and listen, or they just sit. No food, no pens and crayons, no toys. She and her husband figured that it was just a bit over an hour, that no child would starve in that time, and it wouldn’t hurt them to learn to be still. Her children come to church and sit. They don’t make noise. They don’t ask for things. They sit. At first if they had a hard time sitting at church, then they would practice having a quiet resting time during the week, where they spent some time sitting on the sofa, with quiet music in the background. An interesting thing happened. The children were able to feel the spirit. And, they love going to church. Don’t underestimate the spiritual greatness of children. Don’t apologize or mask or worry that they will be bored. Quiet time to just sit and think is important for all people, even little people.
When my children were at home, I never let them leave for school without prayer. This was a simple task when they were young, as it was easy to gather them together for family prayer. It was not as easy when we had kids in High School, Junior High School, and Elementary students, plus early morning seminary, before school theater and children who needed sleep! We still had ‘family’ prayer with each child before they left the house. It just became a family prayer with one or two children at a time. Each time I prayed for each child as they left the house, I envisioned a bubble of protection around them. I was as concerned with the spiritual safety of my children, as I was with the physical safety. I wanted the evils of the world to roll off them, and have no influence over them. I have been thankful everyday that this prayer was answered to the fullest. My children as adults are not naive, but they have remained pure and innocent; seemingly untouched by the evils of the world. We can pray for the spiritual safety of all of the children our families, in this ward and in our communities.
As our bishop has requested, we are all to read our scriptures, have our family prayers, have family home evenings and do service. Will these activities really make a difference in the life of a child? Absolutely. They may not sit still, they may not seem like they are listening, they may grumble and complain when asked to help pull weeds, or mow a lawn or do other service, but inside they are smiling.
And lastly, listen to children. They have amazing things to say. Sometimes their spiritual ideas are right on, and sometimes they need an adult to help them understand more fully. And children make you laugh.
Just last week in Primary we had a few misconceptions from the five year olds, that made us laugh. The first was that Heavenly Father was having a party that afternoon at the Dinosaur Museum and everyone is invited. We didn’t have an exact answer to that, but we were able to say that Heavenly Father invites everyone to come to church every week. The second was that you can’t see Jesus because he’s dead. We were able to joyfully tell that sweet little person that Jesus is very much alive, a resurrected being, that he did live and die for us, and that he lives again!
And then sometimes you get innocent, yet profound gospel truths from even the smallest children.
It takes us all to love and nurture and care for the children in our communities, to teach them the glorious plan of true happiness, and set them and keep them on the straight and narrow path. We can do this by listening to them, teaching them to honor their physical bodies, teaching them how to use the scriptures and make prayer work in their lives, teaching them how to be still and reverent so they can feel the spirit, and teaching them how to serve one another.
I would like to close by sharing with you a profound lesson I learned from a two year old.
Our two year old granddaughter prayed a very short, very sincere, very humbling prayer the other night in which she said, “Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for Jesus Christ. Amen.”
