Forgiveness in Family Life

Here's my favorite story about forgiveness as told by Spencer W. Kimball in April 1966. He quoted an account written by Samuel T. Whitman entitled “Forgotten Wedges.”

Whitman wrote: “The ice storm [that winter] wasn’t generally destructive. True, a few wires came down, and there was a sudden jump in accidents along the highway. … Normally, the big walnut tree could easily have borne the weight that formed on its spreading limbs. It was the iron wedge in its heart that caused the damage.

“The story of the iron wedge began years ago when the white-haired farmer [who now inhabited the property on which it stood] was a lad on his father’s homestead. The sawmill had then only recently been moved from the valley, and the settlers were still finding tools and odd pieces of equipment scattered about. …

“On this particular day, it was a faller’s wedge—wide, flat, and heavy, a foot or more long, and splayed from mighty poundings [—which the lad found] … in the south pasture. [A faller’s wedge, used to help fell a tree, is inserted in a cut made by a saw and then struck with a sledge hammer to widen the cut.] … Because he was already late for dinner, the lad laid the wedge … between the limbs of the young walnut tree his father had planted near the front gate. He would take the wedge to the shed right after dinner, or sometime when he was going that way.

“He truly meant to, but he never did. [The wedge] was there between the limbs, a little tight, when he attained his manhood. It was there, now firmly gripped, when he married and took over his father’s farm. It was half grown over on the day the threshing crew ate dinner under the tree. … Grown in and healed over, the wedge was still in the tree the winter the ice storm came.

“In the chill silence of that wintry night … one of the three major limbs split away from the trunk and crashed to the ground. This so unbalanced the remainder of the top that it, too, split apart and went down. When the storm was over, not a twig of the once-proud tree remained.

“Early the next morning, the farmer went out to mourn his loss. …

“Then, his eyes caught sight of something in the splintered ruin. ‘The wedge,’ he muttered reproachfully. ‘The wedge I found in the south pasture.’ A glance told him why the tree had fallen. Growing, edge-up in the trunk, the wedge had prevented the limb fibers from knitting together as they should.” 

Elder Neil L. Andersen - Tell Me the Stories of Jesus

Building a Family of Faith

Faith in our family begins with trusting our Heavenly Father and His promises. We press forward despite challenges, never giving up on ourselves or our children.We teach our family to have faith in Christ by living what we know to be true. Our children learn their most powerful lessons from our faithfulness.

Having Children Enriches Your Life

Fathers, Mother, Marriage

President Faust wrote and article in the Ensign that puts how I feel about the importance of family much better than I could ever say it.  I would like to share parts of that articles here.

"In recent times, society has been plagued with a cancer from which few families have escaped. I speak of the disintegration of our homes. Immediate corrective treatment is urgent. In what I have to say, I do not wish to offend anyone. I affirm my profound belief that God’s greatest creation is womanhood. I also believe that there is no greater good in all the world than motherhood. The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation. Single parents, most of whom are mothers, perform an especially heroic service."

"It is useless to debate which parent is most important. No one would doubt that a mother’s influence is paramount with newborns and in the first years of a child’s life. The father’s influence increases as the child grows older. However, each parent is necessary at various times in a child’s development. Both fathers and mothers do many intrinsically different things for their children. Both are equipped to nurture children, but their approaches are different. Mothers seem to take a dominant role in preparing children to live within their families, present and future. Fathers seem best equipped to prepare children to function in the environment outside the family...Parents in any marital situation have a duty to set aside personal differences and encourage each other’s righteous influence in the lives of their children."

Equality vs. Identical in Marriage

“Equality is all too often used to mean ‘identity’; that is, that two equal things must be identical to each other.” This is so true in today’s world that people think of equality as meaning that we should be identical. No two people are identical.  Even identical twins are not identical in their personalities, thoughts and feelings. 

Men and women are not going to be identical – we are different, we are meant to be different, but we can still be equal. Genesis 3:16 states that Adam is to “rule over” Eve this in Hebrew can be translated to actually mean “rule with”. President Hunter tells us, “The Lord intended that the wife be…a companion equal and necessary in full partnership.”  By understanding the true meaning of equality, as spouses, we can learn to help each other in our steward-ships.  We don’t just each do our job equally well.  We help so that we do our jobs together.  Men can help with the rearing of the children and women can help either directly or indirectly with the supporting of the family.  Research shows us that by working equally, we will have more satisfaction in our marriage.  “An important reason for equal partners having greater satisfaction is that they have less negative interaction and more positive interaction in their relationship.”

If we work together as equal partners, we will find joy in our marriage which ultimately will help fulfill Heavenly Father’s desire for us to have joy.

Source: “Successful Marriages and Families” by Hawkins et al. (Ch. 4)

What Matters Most