Do you believe in the Ten Commandments? Do you believe that they are just a good guideline for how to live your life, or do you believe that they are actual commandments, literally written in stone by the hand of God himself? I believe that they are in deed commandments from our literal Father in Heaven. As a young mother I had to decide what kind of parent I would be. Would I be as strict as my parents were, as lenient as my husband's were, would I be sweet and gentle, or strict and domineering? After reading the ten commandments one day it suddenly struck me, the fact that "Honor thy father and thy mother" was written on the very same stone tablets as "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal". It was a pretty heavy realization for me at the time and has continued to be a guiding thought as I strive to be a good mother. I try not to sweat the small stuff and to pick and choose my battles but we have always made respect for parents a MUST in our home and I have seen so many good things come of it for our children. They are constantly being praised for their manners and ability to talk with adults. We are able to have so much fun together without loosing our roles as parents because our children understand that we have a job to do as their mom and dad.
I've often wondered, since that moment of enlightenment, about the fact that no where on the Ten Commandments does it say, "Pick your favorite three to obey." Yet that seems to be the attitude of many who say they believe in the Ten Commandments. The only Commandments I ever here quoted by others are the ones about killing, stealing, and adultery. But if they were all important enough to be etched in stone by the hand of the Lord, shouldn't they all be just as important to us as not killing, stealing, or committing adultery? It can be very hard to keep some of the softer sounding commandments like, "Thou shalt not bear false witness" or "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," but I think they have all been written for very very good reasons and should not be ignored. Currently we, as a family, are really working on, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." It is one thing not to work on the sabbath, it is much harder to "keep it holy." So, if any of you have any suggestions on how to keep the sabbath day holy, please share them with me.
8 comments:
No suggestions, we're working on this one too today. I have whiney children here who want to know why I decided they can't play with their train set on Sundays anymore. We do have calm Sunday (cello!) music playing. That really helps, plus we always watch the MoTab in the morning, and I let them watch as many church videos as they want. I try to do genealogy in the afternoon, but invariably get sucked into other areas of the internet, so I need to work on that. I'm glad I visited your blog today though and read this post. Have a great Sunday!
Sunday tends to be "My Day Off" from cooking, not because I think it is wrong to cook on the Sabbath, but because I would rather be spending a relaxing day with my husband and the kids. We have FHE on Sunday, we like to play games and do puzzles together, go on walks and talk about whatever is on our mind. We also help Keri write and color in her journal on these days.
Really keeping the Sabbath day holy is something we are trying to work on around here too. This article, Teaching Children to Keep the Sabbath, from an old Ensign has really helped with simple suggestions like dressing your Sunday best all day. That's a hard one when we don't particularly like to wear dresses around here. Just that alone really helps the children to not be too wild.
We are working on it, too. For me, it's about very little TV, lots of togetherness and reading uplifting things together. Oh, and game night. I am always up for some jovial times with the clan!
Great post! We also believe that patience and catching kids being good will turn out better adults than punishment & coercion! (This was actually the topic of our combined Priesthood/RS today-solving parenting problems with the scriptures.)
My son had a suggestion of his own about Sunday's the other day. Every night we read a scripture story (from the church published picture books of the standard works) and the accompanying scripture verses to go with it. On Sundays, Jordan suggests we read 2 stories, because "Sunday's are special."
When the weather is nice we go outside. Walks a long the river, in the park, in the canyon. Sometimes we bring a trash bag to pick up trash. I know up there in WA the weather is not always condusive to this. We use to visit some older folks in our neighborhood. My kids liked to visit with them. They would spend whole minutes preparing drawings to share with them! Those days Sunday really seamed to fly by, but were very enjoyable. My kids are much happier on Sunday when they are thinking about someone else.
Keeping the Sabath is a real challenge. I like to think of the things I *should* do on the Sabath instead of focusing on what I *shouldn't* be doing. Visiting folks who could use some cheering is one of my favorites.
For our family, having FHE on Sunday has worked best. But also, we just like to be together. This includes playing games, riding bikes, or cooking a meal/dessert.
Post a Comment