Gratitude Challenge Day 1: An Advocate

I am grateful for President Nelson’s challenge to all the world to show more gratitude over this next week and share that with others. Today I want to give thanks for my oldest daughter Elise and the great blessing she is in our lives. As a baby she had a really hard time getting here—after a very rough couple of days in labor she finally came, but only after scaring us as her heart rate dropped to 60 and the doctor had to do an emergency episiotomy and use a vacuum to pull her out. Gratefully she was a healthy baby, but her first several months were rough for her and us as she often struggled to sleep and get her little body to function properly. From the first night in the hospital when she screamed much of it to many painful times thereafter at home when she struggled to be at peace, we were quickly thrown into the challenge that is parenting. But we found that she has a fighting spirit and proved she could make it through anything, and I quickly found myself in love with this little girl! I thank God that he sent her to us!   

                One of the titles that the Savior has given Himself and used especially in this dispensation is Advocate. For example, He said of a group of missionaries as He sent them to preach the gospel: “I myself will go with them and be in their midst; and I am their advocate with the Father, and nothing shall prevail against them.” On another occasion He said to all of us, “Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father; and it is his good will to give you the kingdom.” In another revelation He described specifically how He acts as our advocate, telling us: “Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life” (Doctrine and Covenants 29:5, 32:3, 45:3-5). He literally pleads for us to the Father that all those who believe on Him can have their sins washed away through His great atoning sacrifice. We have no greater advocate than the Savior. And I am grateful in particular for my daughter Elise because she has shown me what it means to be an advocate, helping me better understand my Savior in the process. If there is one word that I could use to describe her, it is exactly that: advocate. She has always had a great love for others and often pleads their cause to us when she feels some injustice has occurred.

One time her brother brought a slug into the house and was trying to put it in his backpack. Most of us couldn’t care less about a little slug, but she nearly lost it as she exclaimed that the slug was running out of oxygen and would soon die! (And in the hands of my son, it likely would.) That is perhaps a comical story, but it represents the great love she has in her for all living things that she wants to protect and save. When she overhears my wife and me talk about someone and she feels that we are not properly standing up for them—even though she may not always understand the context or what we are really saying—she jumps in to plead their cause. She has always had a desire to do what is right and an even stronger desire to see that the right is done to others. After we moved several years ago, it was only under her insistence (and artwork) that we tried to visit and stay connected with our former neighbor who had declining health. When we are trying to put a baby to sleep and sometimes let that baby cry for a little bit as they try to calm down, she desperately pleads with us for permission to take the baby out of the crib and hold them to comfort them. Similar to the sons of Mosiah, she “[can] not bear that any human soul should perish” or suffer and “the very thoughts that any soul should endure [any] torment [does] cause [her] to quake and tremble” (Mosiah 28:3). And also like the sons of Mosiah, she is eager to share the gospel to help others. I remember one time when she was three we took a walk around our neighborhood after a session of general conference and she boldly announced four different times to people that we passed: “We’re having general conference!” I then had to awkwardly explain to some puzzled strangers what she was talking about. One time in third grade she felt prompted to share her testimony of the gospel with her teacher and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon of her own volition. This was very difficult for her and it took a lot of bravery, but something in her pushed her to offer this gift to her teacher and she went through with it. I thank her for her great example of love and concern for others that I so often lack. I still have much to learn from her about loving for others!

             So today, I give thanks to my Father in Heaven for sending my wife and me our first daughter and for the great blessing she has been in our lives these past ten years. I sorrow that I’m so often not the parent I should be, and as the oldest she often has had to deal with my greatest failings as a parent while I try to figure out how to raise children. But gratefully she has a forgiving heart and a persevering spirit to work through the challenges we face together. How blessed my wife and I are to have her in our home!