by Sister Alice Hauser, Stake Relief Society Second Counselor
Lately, I’ve been worrying about how our 20 grandchildren will navigate this world. With so much turmoil of late, I wonder how best we can help to minister to them and keep them engaged in their child-like faith enough to create a deep relationship with their Heavenly Father.
As much as we tried to protect and shelter our own children, they each had their own battles to fight and pain to experience. They had their own trail to blaze to find and cherish their relationship with The Savior.
When our son was in his senior year, a dear friend of his, and her little brother, were hit by a car on the way to school. She was killed instantly; her brother died a few hours later in the hospital. A student was driving the car that hit them. When this 6’2” son came home and sobbed in my arms like a little child, I wished I could protect him from that pain, but I knew it was something he would have to navigate. We both cried.
Each of our children has had to experience unwanted pain, either from the actions of others or because of their own poor choices. While not able to protect them from the ensuing pain that followed, we were able to give them a safe place to land through our own example and practice of faith. We were able to encourage them to start their mornings with friends and teachers who loved them and a simple message of faith to get them through those long, sometimes, 12-hour days of school. We encouraged family scripture study but hoped our own example of opening our scriptures in personal study would be what they remembered on the hardest days of their missions. We gathered together in family prayer, with the hope that when away from us, they would remember that their name was on our lips.
The very things that we would have liked to protect our children from have made them strong. They have built emotional and spiritual resilience to draw upon and cement their own example of faith to their little ones. Would I have liked to take away some of their trials? Yes. But President Eyring reminds us, “He has raised up and prepared faithful people who choose to do hard things well. He has always been lovingly patient in helping us learn “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.” He is firm in the timing and the sequence of His intentions, yet He ensures that sacrifice often brings continuing blessings that we did not foresee.
The Lord is leading the Restoration of His gospel and His Church. He goes before us. He knows the future perfectly. He invites you to the work. He joins you in it. He has in place a plan for your service. And even as you sacrifice, you will feel joy as you help others rise to be ready for His coming” (Elder Henry B. Eyring, He Goes Before Us, 2020).
Akron Ohio Stake News 