Nightmares and Prayers

A few days ago, around Midnight, Sarah came into our room and said "Molly is screaming". I got up out of bed groggily and Mary was shortly behind me. Molly was indeed screaming/crying hysterically in her crib. After trying to talk to her and calm her down, she started yelling "I want out" or something to the effect that made it clear that she did not want to be in her crib anymore. So, I scooped her up and carried her out into our front room and sat in the Lazy-boy recliner and she sat on my lap while she calmed down. She seemed pretty worked up and upset about something. Mary and I talked to her for a little bit and she seemed to have a low-grade fever, or at least be very warm. She started to talk about a "Bad Cat" so we figured that she had some kind of a nightmare. Poor girl! She seemed to be trying to tell us more about the Bad Cat or her nightmare but it was hard to discern. She was calmed down by this point and seemed content to be cuddling with me. However, any mention of going back to bed was filled with instant resistance and an emphatic "Nooooo!" I tried to offer to sing to her but she just kept wanting to talk and cuddle. Things seemed stable and calmed down enough that Mary went back to bed at this point, having not felt well that day. After her jabbering and me trying to respond to or discern what she was saying, offers of singing a song being turned down and mentions of going back to bed being strongly opposed, we just sat there quietly and rocked for a little bit. I had the thought that we could say a prayer, since she has been doing that a lot more recently (prayers for meals, family prayers and sometimes her own bedtime prayer). I asked if she would like to do this and she agreed. We said a prayer, with her repeating 1-2 words at a time. This is what I remember us saying in the prayer:

"Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for Jesus, He loves me. Thank You for my family. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy and Sarah and Nathan and Jane and Me and Maxy (our dog). Thank you for my crib. Thank you for my blankets and my pillow and my animals. Thank you for my room to sleep in. Father, please help me to sleep good, to not be scared of the Bad Cat. Help me to feel safe and happy. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Upon finishing the above prayer, Molly's response was "Again Daddy". We repeated the above prayer again. She said "Again Daddy". It was repeated. I asked if she felt better, she said "Yes, Again Daddy." So we said the prayer a fourth time. After this prayer I asked again if she was feeling better and she said yes. I asked if I could sing her a song and she said "yes". So I started singing all three verses of "I Am a Child of God". She knew some of the words in the chorus and sang some of those words along with me, albeit a little delayed :) We finished this and she said "Again Daddy". After we sang this song a second time I asked if we could go say good night to Mommy and she said "Yes". So we went to say goodnight to Mary and she wanted to say her prayer again, so we knelt next to Mommy who was in bed and said the prayer again. She then gave her Mom a hug and kiss, said goodnight and went to sleep. She didn't wake up at all again that night and went to sleep seemingly peacefully.

I was grateful for this experience. It was a special one for me with my little Molly who is so attached to her Daddy. She was so sweet and I loved being able to be her father during this experience and was grateful that I could help her turn toward our Father for comfort as well. She found comfort in a combined effort of my physical arms and heart and his less-tangible but no less real presence. I am grateful for the reminder of the power and influence of prayer, in particular but also hymns that can bring peace and comfort in times of distress. I am grateful for the reminder of the need to turn to this limitless and always-available resource in my life and for the lives of those around me every day.

Interestingly, as I was typing up this experience this morning, Nathan came out of his bedroom and volunteered that he had a nightmare last night and said a prayer to Heavenly Father to help him with the nightmare and went back to bed. He reported that he had a "good dream" after that and when he woke up this morning he said that he said aloud "Thank You, Heavenly Father" as he got up out of bed.

I'm grateful that I shared the experience that I had with Molly with my kids. I'm grateful that they (sometimes) listen and follow.

Early Morning Scriptures

This year we set some goals together as a family. One of those goals was to improve our scripture study as a family. In the past we have done it in the evening, usually after snack time just before bed. It has always felt a little rushed and like it was "just one more thing to do" before we could get the kids to bed before, as parents, we could have our time to ourselves. Mary has been asking me for a couple of months to consider scriptures in the morning. I was fairly reticent to really consider it because I know that she is not a morning person and I know that I don't like my morning pre-work ritual broken up or impeded and so I'm sometimes a little irritable when it is.

Nevertheless, we talked more about it and I was ready to get on board with this change. We talked about it with the kids and they were game (for the most part). This means that I get up about 25 mins earlier than normal and we rouse the kids around 6:50 so that they can be ready to read at about 7:00. There has certainly been some grumpiness from the kids about this (mostly Sarah) but the actual content of our reading has been so much more meaningful and we have actually had good discussion at times and been able to ask questions and get coherent responses (for the most part).

In my perception of our scripture reading in the past I have felt that we and they have not been very focused and to get through a couple of verses with some meaningful understanding on their part was a huge success. Additionally, I think that I saw this as "good enough" because I felt that maybe the scriptures were still a little over their heads, to some degree Now, I feel like they are really understanding what is happening from one day to the next - they are able to follow the story and we can meaningfully pull out the principles for them to look at and consider. It certainly helps that they are semi-conscious, but I don't think that is even accurate. It's more like their minds are awake but their bodies aren't quite awake yet to be real active and distracting. It has been great! This has also helped us to have a less-rushed and more consistent family prayer together before I head off to work.

I hope to leave for work before 7:20 (so I can be at work at 7:30) and I have to make sure that I have had breakfast and am ready for the day when I wake the kids up for scriptures in the morning. The funny thing about Sarah's grumpiness is that she rarely missed out on saying goodbye to me before I left for work previously, so the kids (with Jane as an exception, as she would sometimes sleep in for a bit in the past) are really only getting up about 10-15 mins earlier than normal.

It has helped, I think, that we have been reading in Alma about Captain Moroni (which is where we were at before the new year) as I think that is a bit more exciting for the kids. I have been impressed with how easy it is for the kids to understand what we have been reading just by having the reading in the morning. It's been great and I'm grateful for a wife that helped us to move in the right direction with our scriptures.

Oh, and I hope that it would be obvious that we do not get up Molly at her age yet. We'll probably wait until she is out of Nursery or is waking up closer to that time. I know this isn't possible for some families depending on what time the parent(s) leave for work but it has been a great blessing to us for the last couple of weeks and we hope for years to come.

Our Abbreviated Testimonies

For an assignment at church, Mary and I were asked to write our testimonies in roughly 250 words about serving in the church. This is what we wrote:

Mary wrote:
I haven't met any extremely trying or overwhelming trials in my life; rather I find everyday life to be my real trial. With each new responsibility, child, venture, etc. I become more acutely aware of the areas and ways in which I fall short of who I know I can be. I have found that my greatest struggle is an inner struggle with myself. Consequently, my testimony too has changed from an external understanding and belief in doctrine and principles of the Gospel to a witness of how Heavenly Father truly has a plan for me full of hope and possibilities, because He has provided me with a Savior. I know that whereas I can accomplish very little on my own; all things are possible in Christ. And that helps me to keep trying even when I have failed many times before.

I am very grateful for the opportunities that my husband and I have had to serve in leadership callings that are somewhat “demanding,” because they have been times of expedited growth. I find that the things we have had to learn to incorporate into our lives to sustain a strong, connected marriage and family are principles and practices that we should have already been drawing upon, but we hadn’t because we had never learned how to or we never saw the need for them before. We are learning the importance and the incredible blessings that come of living a purpose driven life.


Jeff wrote:
Ever since my mission I have loved opportunities to serve in the Church and my life and family have been blessed for, and in, that service. Sometimes church responsibilities result in longer days and busier weekends then I would have scheduled for myself. However, I have always appreciated that upon the close of those days or weekends that there is a consistently accompanied assurance that I was doing what the Lord would have me or my family do. Certainly, there is an awareness or reminder of what you could have been doing or what still needs to get done, but it seems that the stuff that needs to get done (yard work, home repairs… honey-do stuff) gets done and that our efforts in doing those more menial, yet necessary tasks, are consecrated by the Lord for putting His kingdom first. At times, I have left my wife and children to serve the Lord with some reluctance in my heart and some sadness on their faces. Yet, I have found that, the Lord compensates me and my family during those times of sacrifice in His behalf, if not immediately in the way we want, certainly in the way we need.

While I cannot enumerate all the blessings that have come from my service in my Father’s Kingdom and to His children, I know that I am happy, I love my life, I love my wife, I love our children, and I love my God.

Sweet Moments!

Today, we received the December edition of The Friend Magazine that is published by our church for children (ages 0 -12 or so). The last couple of months, whenever we get this magazine, reading the stories from it replaces books for Sarah in the evening as she's so excited to read it and color some of the pictures in it. Anyway, tonight I was reading the story titled "The Language of Dance" on p. 32 (not linkable online yet because it's not December yet, so they don't have the electronic version of this edition). It's a sweet story. Anyway, as I was reading Nathan was being his distracting self... making noises and such. I could tell Sarah was really trying to listen to the story but was having a hard time. The interesting thing was that I would typically just hurry through this, regardless of Nathan's noises, so I could get them to bed. But tonight, for some reason, I asked Nathan several times to be quieter so Sarah could hear. Then I rearranged the seating so Sarah could hear better. Then I went back a little in the story and read what she might have missed during Nathan's commotion. When I finished the story, I looked over and was surprised to see that it looked like Sarah might have been a little teary-eyed. I asked her how she felt and she said "good". I asked if she had cried and she said, in a sweeter than usual tone, "yeah Dad, but it was a happy cry". I asked her if this was the first time she had had a cry like that and she said "yes". I I asked her what she was feeling inside and she said she felt "love" and, after a brief pause, "good". I told her that I knew that that good and love feeling that she felt inside of her was the Holy Ghost. I asked her why she had felt like that and she said that the girls in the story had made the right choice and that they were good friends. It was a really neat experience and I told her that I was proud of her for listening to and feeling the Spirit and that I knew that she could make similar choices in her life.
I love sweet experiences and moments like this where your child learns something that, developmentally, they may not have been at a point where they could make sense of those experiences yet.
This particular situation is one that I've struggled to explain to her over the last couple of years. She's frequently asked, when she's seen me or Mary or someone speaking at Church shed tears of joy, why we/they are crying if they are happy. I've tried to explain it, but I haven't really been able to do it in a way that made sense to her as crying has always been coupled with sad/upset/painful feelings in her experience. But she learned the difference between those kinds of feelings and those kinds of tears tonight! We love you Sarah!

Bless that...

From Sarah's prayer over her breakfast this morning:
"Bless that the birds will have enough fish to eat and the jaguars will have enough animals to eat... Bless that Jesus can be our bestest King forever and ever, and Heavenly Father too."

After a spell of fairly rote prayers that were brief, fast and straight to the point, she is starting to put more meaning (from our limited adult perspective) into her prayers. We tried to not make the routine/rote prayers an issue and just let her speak to her Father in Heaven however she wanted to (though we did have a Family Night lesson on the subject) and it's nice to see her choosing to be more expressive vocally in her prayers.