Raising Heaven's Children

President Hinckley said, “I speak to fathers and mothers everywhere with a plea to put harshness behind us, to bridle our anger, to lower our voices, and to deal with mercy and love and respect one toward another in our homes.”  That is perhaps one of the greatest challenges in having a home with little children—staying calm and patient and loving despite the tantrums and messes and fighting and screaming that can occur.  President Hinckley also said, “You need heaven’s help in raising heaven’s child—your child, who is also the child of his or her Heavenly Father.”  That’s the principle that I too often forget; I’m not raising my children but rather I am raising God’s children. I know that if I were asked to tend someone else’s kids for a brief period I would not raise my voice at them; so why would I do it to for my own who are really God’s anyway? 

               Perhaps there is something we can learn about parenting from Hannah the mother of Samuel.  We of course won’t be handing off our children to the local priest (as tempting as it might seem at times), but her spirit of consecration and reverence for what God had given her surely is meant to teach us.  When Hannah was unable to have children she prayed, “O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11).  She fulfilled that vow by literally giving her son Samuel into the service of Eli, but couldn’t we make a similar covenant with the Lord that if He gives us His children to raise, we will “give [them] unto the Lord all the days of [their] life”?  In other words, this promise would signify that we will always remember that these children are indeed the Lord’s and we would seek to raise them as He directs us.  After Hannah’s prayer was answered she said, “For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord. And he worshipped the Lord there” (1 Samuel 1:27-28).  I like that concept of lending our children to the Lord; He gives them to us originally and then we give them back by the way that we care for them.  Just as tithing is really giving back to the Lord what He already gave us, so too this attitude of Hannah’s was to return her child to the Lord that He had already given her.  For us lending our children back to the Lord would mean that we seek only to do His will in how we teach them, how we discipline them, how we love them and raise them.  Surely I would do things differently if I could always see my children as not mine but His. 

               I love the way that Nephi described his own father’s dealings with his rebellious children, Laman and Lemuel.  After Lehi expressed his loving concern for their eternal welfare, Nephi told us that Lehi “did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent, that they would hearken to his words, that perhaps the Lord would be merciful to them, and not cast them off” (1 Nephi 8:37).  After all of their rebellions—by this point in the story Laman and Lemuel had already attempted to kill Nephi—it amazes me that Lehi could speak to them as a “tender parent” with love and patience.  Would our children describe us as being “tender parents” to them even in moments of correction and discipline?  Surely Lehi understood that these were the Lord’s children, and his greatest desire was that Laman and Lemuel would return to His presence and not be cast off.  Lehi and Hannah are both powerful models for us to follow as we seek to raise heaven’s children.