Three very separate events happened recently to serve as the impetus for this post. First, my friend Lindsey asked me to edit an essay she wrote for one of her college classes. I'm always delighted to serve in this way because let's face it: when your skill set is as woefully limited as mine is, you don't get that many opportunities to serve. No one wants me cooking. Or singing. Or crafting. Or painting. Or gardening. Or playing games. I could go on. I won't. But when a close friend or family member asks me to edit something, yep, I'm all over it.
Second, yesterday I had the rare opportunity to watch Eli's choir, "From the Heart," sing at two nursing homes, a children's hospital, and finally at a fireside at a nearby church. Let's just say days don't get much more perfect.
Third, in Sacrament Meeting today, our Elders Quorum President spoke about the benefits of holding regular Family Home Evening (a program in our church where families are encouraged to gather weekly to study, pray, eat good food, and play!).
So how are these three events connected? Hopefully by the end, that will become clear. Let me begin with a disclaimer. This blog is by definition a "Mommy blog." A friend once said "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a mommy blogger," and yes, I am just another one of the hundreds. I love to write about my family and my role as mother to the five best kids in the world. Who wouldn't? Occasionally, though, I write on other topics, sometimes politics (my other passion), sometimes topics related to my church.
This is one of those times. So if church isn't your deal, you might want to skip this post and join me again next time. I won't be mad.
Lindsey's essay was a personal narrative about how she came to gain her own testimony of the gospel. I knew the story already, but reading it in essay form gave it life. I felt what she had felt all those years ago. It reminded me of a similar story in our family, a story of a little boy, faith, and a prayer answered.
The little boy was our Eli, who was six years old. He was hands down our most spirited kid. After three relatively calm children, his energy and passion rocked our world in ways we had never imagined. This morning, when the Elders Quorum President spoke of his memories of FHE in his home as a child, he said, "It starts with a prayer and ends with somebody crying." Yep, that was exactly the case in our family although the one left crying was always me, clueless as to how to get Eli to settle down and listen, while trying to keep two young teenagers interested as they rolled their eyes as if to say "Why can't you control this kid, so we can get this over with?"
Even so, that six-year-old little boy was in the process of developing a faith, pure and simple, step by step. And one step happened as he learned about the power of prayer, just like Lindsey did while camping on a mountain. Back then, we lived in a house whose backyard came up against another family's, with no fence, and in that family, the oldest child was a boy right in between Isaiah and Eli in age. The three were fast and furious friends who were together more than they were apart.
One of their favorite things to do was to play video-games with a hand-held unit called a Nintendo Game Boy. Games for this console were tiny, 2-inch, flat squares. Seriously, the things were practically begging to be lost. The cost of each tiny square? Around $50, depending on the game. Isaiah and Eli traded games back and forth with Jordan, yes, I know, a very bad idea! You guessed it; they lost one of Jordan's games. Ugh! It became a family affair to find that tiny piece of plastic because with a single income and four little kids plus one on the way, we clearly did not have the resources to replace Jordan's $50 game.
We searched. Everywhere. We rummaged through drawers. We crawled around the floor on hands and knees. We moved furniture and swept underneath. No luck. Emotions were high and contention thick. And right in the middle of all that strife, our little Eli declared, "We need to have a family prayer." Gerald turned to me, out of earshot of the kids, and whispered, "I don't know about you, but I don't have that kind of faith."
"Me either," I replied, "but if our little boy wants to have a family prayer, that is exactly what we will do." In a quiet voice (he was rarely quiet), Eli offered a simple plea to his Heavenly Father to please help us find Jordan's game." We all said "Amen," opened our eyes, and not three feet from where I was standing, right in the middle of the floor in plain sight, was that game. And so began a young child's unwavering testimony of prayer.
Eli would go on to offer many more prayers in the 17 years that followed, and while most would not be answered as instantly as that one was, his testimony of prayer would sustain him through whatever came. He would go on to dedicate two years of his life in the deep south and endure sweltering heat, threat of tornadoes, and daily rejection in order to share with others the truth he knows so well and loves so much. He would go on to seek an eternal companion, who would go with him to the Holy Temple to make covenants with God and begin to build an eternal family of his own.
And he would go on to share the beautiful voice God gave him to bless others through song. He would sing for the elderly and for sick children. And for me.
Thank you, Lindsey, for your story of faith that touched my heart and stirred my memories. Thank you, Elders Quorum President, for your honest portrayal of the challenge and the joy of Family Home Evening. And thank you, Eli, for being you.
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