Tonight I attended the Saturday night session of our local church unit's semi-annual conference (we call it Stake Conference). The messages delivered in conference always give a good boost (as well as reminders of things to work on) to one's spiritual well-being.
I loved one of the stories shared by our Long Beach Mission President, President Bubert. He told of a woman from a town out in the middle of nowhere in 1900’s Idaho. She had worked for days getting a garden plot ready to plant the only seeds she had: some peas. Finally the ground was ready and she planted her meager peas. When she was finished, she went into the kitchen to wash all the soil off of her hands from planting and looked up through the window to see a rooster going along her freshly-planted rows and eating all her peas! She ran out and chopped the head off of that rooster, fished out all of the peas, replanted them, AND cooked that rooster for dinner!
Moral of the story: Don’t let anything stand in the way of that which gives you sustenance, which he then likened to spiritual sustenance—scripture study, prayer, family home evening, etc.
You know, I'm really thankful for the family traditions we have of holding Family Home Evening each Monday night, and of always having family scripture study each morning, and having family prayer morning and night. Those three things have really sustained our family through many trials. Recently my father passed away. What a comfort it was to hold Family Home Evening that very night, to be together, to share and support, to allow everyone a say in how they would like to participate in the funeral services, to reiterate how grateful we are that Dad is in a better place, that he can breathe freely again-- and that we have been sealed as a family. May we always plant and keep sight of those things that will give us eternal sustenance.
