Showing Love Through Words

I have a friend.  Her name is Emilie, and we've never met, but I like her, so she is my friend.  Her outlook on life is inspiring.  I love the way she finds time to do the little things.  Through her generous nature and amazing testimony, she has created many beautiful things.  One of my favorite things recently, is her Family Home Evening Blog.  She, with her husband, have created "A Year of FHE" lessons in accordance with the counsel of Latter-Day Prophets.

We, as a family, have been very successful with using her FHE blog as a resource for our Family Home Evenings.  We started out with a bang, and I'm proud and excited to let you all know that we've been successful in at least one night for our family each week.  We're 6 & 6 (for 2010)!

I'll admit, that on February 1st, we deemed dinner with our family at a local resturaunt and games afterwards as our weekly FHE.  There was not a spiritual message this night, but many compliments were paid to the boys for their good behavior, and the Spirit was present in our car on the way home and for the remainder of the evening.  It was very uplifting. 

The 'scheduled' lesson from Emilie's blog this week was titled "Showing Love through Words".  It was a topic that needed to be addressed within in the walls of our home.  It was essential for our family to communicate to each other and to understand the power of words. 

Granted, we had to adapt the lesson for our younger children, but I pray with all my heart that we each learned and will be able to quickly apply that lesson in our home.  Far too often, I am quick to yell, get upset, or bothered by the sweet things and not-so-sweet things my children and even husband does or doesn't do.  I really appreciated this lesson, and asked one question to each family member that I hoped would help us to do better:

"How does our home feel when we yell and say mean words?"

The various answers were touching.  Our sons were sincere and honest.  Ryan was silly, till I gave him the stink-eye, and I shared my testimony with my family about speaking kind words.

Proverbs 15:1 reads:  "A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger."  Recently, and especially today, I felt like throwing in the towel from all the yelling, badgering, bickering, and complaining going on in my home.  It was downright depressing.   And I was just as much to blame as the other three family members. 

I would say tonight's lesson was a successful topic.  It didn't fix our problem areas, but helped us to see that we need to drastically improve the feeling in our home.

If you missed it above, the link to Emilie's FHE blog is HERE.

If you feel like Family Home Evening is something you'd like to try, consider this:  It can be fun.  It doesn't have to be stressful, and you don't have to be LDS to get involved with your family life!  Something your family does together to show that you love each other, or to serve a neighbor, or to become closer to Christ 'counts'.

I challenge you to make one night a week meaningful for your family.  I think you'll like what it does for you, your spouse, your children, and your home.