“I want to be my own kid!” my daughter
said. Hmmm……
“What does that mean?” I
asked.
She replied, “I get to choose
what I want to do!” We worked out a plan and several days later she
commented, “Being your own kid, is harder than I thought!”
I Will Listen to What You
Want...
It was a pickle bottling day.
One child wanted sliced pickles and another wanted speared
pickles. After the initial, “I want my pickles sliced.” “I want my
pickles speared.” Their conversation moved to, “Why do you want them that
way?” and then “What if we did some pickles speared and some sliced?”
Hooray! A family
breakthrough! Listening and respect was at the core of the discussion.
So simple. So beautiful. Perhaps you need to have witnessed more
than a few conversations gone awry with raw selfishness, punctuated with the
attitude, “I want what I want,” to catch the beauty of this moment.
I Will Do Whatever You Ask…
There are heroic moments in
every family. Many times in a struggling moment, one son will come up to
me and with a voice that carries all the joy of a hero in rescue mode and says “What can
I do to help you, Mom? I’ll do whatever you need.” Oh the joy of
hearing a child so willing to help and heal!
How does this apply to my
relationship to God? Do I say, “I want what I want?
Do I say, “I
will listen to what you want.”? Or can I say, “I will do whatever
you ask.”?
The Savior, the perfect example
of this said: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will,
but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:38) And
President Benson said: “When obedience
ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will
endow us with power.”
Oh the challenge of getting our
hearts right! Each day offers opportunities to answer his commandments.
When I see the blessing of having a child with a willing heart, perhaps I catch
the smallest glimpse into the heart of God. The one offering he accepts,
but never demands, is the offering of our heart manifest in choosing “I will do whatever
you ask.” I'm grateful for God's tutoring love and patience in the move from "being my own kid," to trusting in Him and being able to say, "Thy will be done."
