Love Letters: From the Lord


"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things. I am tempted to think there are no little things."
~Bruce Barton

This morning was the beginning of something new for us. I'm calling it our "morning devotional." I think I mentioned before that I have been reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would :) And I've been thinking about the kinds of habits/patterns we would like to have in our home.

Elder Holland, in the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting (Feb. 9, 2008), introduced the word pattern. He said, "Some of those things that we probably take for granted should not be taken for granted, like family scripture study, like family prayer, like family home evening – we tend to dash those off as if they were understood by everybody, but they are not. They ought to become part of a family pattern."

When we got married we got a gift from the family of one of my "favorite" (I had a lot of favorites) dance students called a "devotional basket." The note with the gift said they used a basket at their kitchen table to hold their scriptures and things they needed for their morning devotional. I really respected this family and I've been thinking about when we could start. We read the scriptures together as a family at night when Daddy is home.  But, I feel like our kids are old enough and we are ready to establish this pattern now. So today we started. We are using the Gospel Art Kit (see photo above) to guide our discussion.

Here is the first picture:

This is how it went today:
M "What do you see in this picture?"
J "Animals!"
M What animals do you see?
J "Lion, Jumbo, etc. big whale! Do you see a frog?"
M "I don't see a frog :("
M Who made the animals?
J "Jesus!"
M What other animals did God make?
J "Turtles, and frogs, and birdies."
M Who did God make the animals for?
J "The zoo! Is that a picture of the zoo?"
M "Nope, it isn't a zoo. Did God make the animals for us?
J "Yes!"
M "Do Jesus and Heavenly Father love us?"
J "Yes!"
M "That is why God made the animals for us.
M "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth. ... And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. Genesis 1:20, Genesis 1:24
M On the fifth day God made the fishes and put them in the water. And He made the birds and
J "He put them in the sky!"
M And on the sixth day He made all the other animals and creeping things. Like frogs and turtles!
J "He made froggies! Can we do another picture?"

I guess that means he likes our new "pattern."
I think Sister caught on too. She hopped down off my lap and went and got our new IKEA finger puppets (thanks Grandma Marmee and Grandpa!) to play with.  I think that reading some love letters from the Lord (ie: scriptures) will help us have a happy morning and a good start to our day.  What a Fun Little Project :)

1 comment:

Summers Family said...

This is a great idea! I think it will be part of lunch for us. Breakfast consists of reading two of the Book of Mormon Reader chapters while the kids finish eating (they always seem to take twice as long as me, leaving just enough time for scripture stories). It has actually motivated them to get ready faster so that we have time for the stories - what a miracle!

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