Gratitude Challenge Day 4: If Thou Art Merry

When President Nelson invited us to focus on gratitude last Friday, it had been a pretty rough week in our home. Sometimes there is just so much contention and chaos, so much screaming and sibling rivalry. Friday was in fact a pretty low point in terms of the trouble we were having with our children, and I was frustrated as I awoke Saturday morning and thought about how I would show gratitude. I realized that I needed to focus on what I love about my children and their strengths, and so I decided to take a day for each to really reflect on who they are and why I love them. It has, as President Nelson promised, truly been therapeutic for me and even after the first day it felt to me that the feeling in our home improved. I hope that those who happen to read these posts I am making about my children do not see them as an effort to put them up on a pedestal; rather, I am trying to help myself focus on the good qualities they each have. I could write pages about our challenges with them, my own failings as a parent, and the struggles we go through in our home like any other. But we can leave that for another day, and doing this exercise has helped me see them with new eyes and truly feel grateful for each of them. To any who struggle with children I certainly recommend it as very good therapy!

                As the Saints traveled across the plains, Brigham Young received a revelation in which the Lord said this: “If thou art merry, praise the Lord with singing, with music, with dancing, and with a prayer of praise and thanksgiving” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:28). If there is anyone in my home who follows that counsel, it is my fourth child Lucy. The month before she turned two we went to a wedding reception for my wife’s cousin, and she just reveled in it as she found she was dressed up and had a whole gym floor available to her to dance on. Unlike her older three siblings, she had no inhibitions about people watching her and she soon had a circle around her as she danced. At home it is no different—there is nothing she would rather be doing than dancing and running around, dressing up in princess clothes and trying on new shoes. There is no greater tragedy than when Lucy cannot find a certain pair of dress shoes or a particular dress or shirt she just knows she must wear that instant. When her aunt left her a pair of light up plastic play shoes late one evening, it was clear she was not going to bed at any reasonable hour as she loudly danced around the hardwood floor in those treasures. I think she finally went to sleep with them on (a common occurrence for her). How grateful I am for the joy and excitement that Lucy brings to our home!  

                In addition to teaching me how to just love life, Lucy has also taught me what it means to love others and to love God. I have been amazed and the love she shows in particular to her little baby sister Charity. The night the baby came home from the hospital Lucy was so excited and beamed to have her new sister finally here. But when the baby started to cry for the first time at home, Lucy trembled with worry and burst into tears because her little sister was sad. Not much has changed since then, and Lucy often comes to us with a list of needs for Charity, telling me to get her out of her crib or feed her or take care of her in some way. She hovers around her little sister with the love of a mother and cries when Charity has to take a nap because she just wants to play with her. I am so grateful for her example of love! Lucy has also shown me what it means to love the Lord. She speaks openly about Jesus and I believe she is often inspired to help others, including caring for her sister, because of her love for Him. Once I was cleaning a bathroom and she came to me unprompted and said, “Jesus told me to help you clean the bathroom.” She has often spoken about how she feels Jesus and Heavenly Father in her heart, and at night it is usually her that reminds me that she needs to say her prayers. The other morning she got up and announced to me that she didn’t pray the night before, which she promptly went and rectified. She has a great love for the Lord and certainly follows the powerful injunction given by Moses to the children of Israel: “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). She loves the Lord and loves life, and I give thanks to God for sending us our precious little Lucy!