Agency

Some days I feel like I talk but my children don't hear me.  I beg.  I plead.  I shout.  I get blank stares.  I wonder if my words will ever be understood.  Some days they get it, and my heart soars.
Family Home Evening tonight (6/24/13) was amazing.  I've been pondering a lot lately about the Plan of Salvation.  The war in Heaven wasn't about right and wrong but the right to choose our own path.  There are consequences to every choice.  Good and Bad.  Lucifer's Plan would bind us to one fate.  Our Eternal reward would not be earned it would be forced.  I love my family.  I panic when I think about losing any one of them to sin.  I want to shout at them to just do what I say.  I know best!  I don't want you to experience the negative consequences of making poor choices.  But the more I force the more stubborn they become.  I listened to a speaker in Sacrament on Sunday discuss agency and I realized that their resistance wasn't because they didn't love me or respect me.  And it wasn't because they were defiant children.  It is because they had fought for their right to choose and won.  Growing up I was an easy child.  I aimed to please.  I did what I was told.  I was in college before I questioned my own spiritual beliefs and decided for myself about what was truth.  We are told all the time that this generation of young people were saved for these latter days because of their strength.  I know this is true.  I saw this strength in my own children tonight.
  After lesson in FHE our family has the tradition of providing an opportunity for every one to bear testimony.  I bore my testimony regarding the sacred gift of agency.  I told my children that I would commit to learning how to teach them without limiting their ability to choose.  And then I gave them the floor.  Braelynn shared a testimony that was cute but mostly incoherent.  And then Kade spoke.  Normally, I have to nudge Kade.  Coerce him to speak, until begrudgingly, he feels compelled to share a testimony.  Tonight he volunteered and the Spirit filled our home.  He bore witness of his desire to be good, to be like God.  He said he didn't want to make mistakes but he knew he would.  His tear-filled testimony made my heart soar.  Kade you are a choice spirit.  Your desire to make your own choices comes from your experiences in our pre-Earth life.  At the age of 7 you have more conviction in you then I had when I left the safety of my parent's home and confronted the world.  I often worry that your stubbornness will lead you down difficult paths.  Tonight I realized that you will not be swayed by the influences of the world or even by the pleadings of your mother.  You may not remember life before you came here to me but your testimony is far greater than anything I could have taught you here.  Your Eternal experiences have already shaped your life.  You will make mistakes and I will say many prayers on your behalf.  You have the potential to become like God.  I have faith that you will.  And not because you were told to or even compelled to, but because you want to.  I will learn to not get angry as you exercise your agency and you will continue to use your agency to inspire me to be better.