Behold Your Little Ones

In his most recent talk in general conference, Elder Holland encouraged us to develop the Christlike attributes of little children. He said, “How different life could be if the world esteemed Jesus above the level of a profane swearing streak from time to time. But children really do love Him, and that love can carry over into their other relationships in the playground of life. As a rule, even in their youngest years, children love so easily, they forgive so readily, they laugh so delightfully that even the coldest, hardest heart can melt. Well, the list goes on and on. Purity? Trust? Courage? Character?” Being a parent, we get to see this firsthand and often learn more about being like the Savior than they learn from us. I am especially impressed by my youngest daughter, now five, and her ability to love and forgive. She often comes up to me at random times, gives me a hug, and says, “I love you, Daddy.” Recently at her preschool many of the kids’ parents brought their dogs at the end of school at the invitation of the teacher, but my wife didn’t bring ours. Our daughter was nearly in tears when she didn’t have her dog there that she was expecting to see and show her friends. And yet afterwards she said to her mom simply and with total forgiveness, “I’m not mad at you.” This kind of love and forgiveness is surely what the Lord wants us to develop as described by the angel to King Benjamin: “The natural man is an enemy to God… unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love” (Mosiah 3:19).

I was reminded yesterday of the need to be like children and cherish them while we can as I watched an excellent production of the play Finding Neverland. I gained a new perspective about putting kids to bed, often a challenging task our house, when I heard these words from J.M Barrie, “Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older, and then before you know it, they’re grown.” Though I have often told my children to stop growing, of course I cannot stop it, and the time seems to go faster and faster as the years roll on. The challenge is to not let the multitude of daily tasks become so all-encompassing that we don’t find meaningful time to be with our children. Perhaps the Savior was trying to help us see the need to be with and learn from and cherish our children when He set the little ones in front of the Nephites, blessed them, prayed for them, and declared, “Behold your little ones.” The next verse recounts, “And as they looked to behold they cast their eyes towards heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them” (3 Nephi 17:23-24). This account reminds us of the words of the Savior when He tried to teach His followers what it meant to be truly great, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). Little children are so inherently good that angels are charged to watch over them.

After telling a moving story about a new deacon with muscular dystrophy who found the strength and courage to pass the sacrament despite terrible physical challenges, ultimately reaching his father the bishop with the sacrament tray, President Holland commented, “Faith, loyalty, purity, trust, honor, and, in the end, love for that father he so wished to please. These and a dozen other qualities make us also say, ‘Whosoever … shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” Surely all of us adults need to strive a little more to be like and love little children.