Here’s what’s been happening AT OUR HOUSE the past couple weeks.

I sometimes wonder at the difficulties of having a successful family all while living in a society dubbed “generation me.” The advertising and marketing industry constantly barrages us with the message that we as individuals will never be good enough. The media portrays happiness as being found in a life of self indulgence and unrealistic consequences. It seems the world would have us believe that we must eat, drink, and be merry – and if it be that we have sinned a little, God will beat us with a few stripes, and in the end we will be saved in the Kingdom of God.

The unrealistic mentality found here is not in the unwillingness of God to forgive, but in that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of glory AND HAPPINESS. How can we be “saved in the Kingdom” if we do not have habits of happiness? 

And happiness is found in loving relationships with those around us. Families provide the mini laboratory where we are taught – time and again – to love one another as ourselves. To think that we can simply say “I don’t love you anymore” and walk away from those family relationships that we have formed with no consequences to our personal ability to become like Christ is erroneous. We must work hard at our relationships, following the counsel of the Lord.

Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

My own family is not perfect in this counsel, but I will say we are exceptionally good at the wholesome recreational activities bit. And so, let’s get away from the philosophizing for a moment, and recall a story:

So there we were, laying in bed one morning. Olivia was singing “The wheels on the bus.” For weeks she had been telling us “I ride the bus.” That morning Wyatt and I looked at each other and shrugged. We might as well. So we piled in the car and drove up to the University of Utah where we got on the shuttle bus that just drives circles around campus. Olivia was ecstatic to climb up those big bus stairs. She loved her vinyl red seat, and stared out the window in fascination as she realized that car seats did not exist on the bus. Olivia talked of that day for the next several months with excitement and authority – as she now knew what it was to ride the bus. 

I know this is a simple story, but it was such a fun day for Wyatt and I to watch her dream come true. Make a Wish would have it easy with my little girl. She really thought that bus was the bees knees. And I like to remember the simple joy shared by all of us on that day.

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalms 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.

Of all the topics and doctrinal points of the Proclamation to the Family, the discussion of children is my favorite. Is there any wonder why?