Yesterday during the sacrament I had him write down the ways he will keep his baptismal covenants.
Now I realize that my six year old hasn't actually made covenants, but it is never to early to teach them how to keep the covenants that he will one day have the opportunity to make.
Here is what he wrote:
"I will pra(pray) ech(each) da(day).
"I will doo(do) va(the) Lods(Lord's) kame(commandments)."
I admit I had to ask him about the second sentence. I didn't prompt him what to write, I simply asked the question about keeping promises we make when we take the sacrament. I was touched by his awesome understanding of the gospel - at the tender age of six years old.
Of course, this was after he complained about going to Church, this morning "If I go to Church I am just staying in the car!" I tell you this so you know that even my kids sometimes protest going to Church. I don't believe in forcing our children to believe, but I also don't believe in letting my six year old stay home alone for 4+ hours. So I told him that when he is eight he can decide to stay home. I figure if I am going to let my eight year old decide whether or not to be baptized he can certainly decide whether or not to go to church. Hopefully by then he will have had enough meaningful experiences at church that he will want to go.
Like today he had a meaningful experience - he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting, which he hasn't done for a while. Probably because I haven't either. I almost fixed that today, especially when he asked me to go with him, but I was just not feeling it.
Later in the evening we were visiting with my in-laws and my sister-in-law mentioned that her two year old doesn't like church very much and my six year old asked why and she explained that he doesn't really understand why he has to sit still in sacrament meeting. I quipped that my son didn't really like church today either, and he turned to me, "Except, now I do! I liked church today!" I have a feeling that it had something to do with the way he felt when he bore his testimony.
The kid looked like a sunbeam when he came down from the stand.
You've seen an example of the softening power of the Holy Ghost. I've seen this in my life and my family. There have been many times growing up when I hadn't felt like going to church, but went anyway and then been extremely glad I went.
ReplyDeleteMy mom would tell me that if I didn't feel like going, that probably meant there was going to be something extra special that I needed there, and Satan knew that and was working extra hard to discourage me.
It always felt nice to be able to defeat Satan.