All things ...even wayward children... can be for our good! ( Virginia H. Pearce & Elder Holland)

"I have a good friend whom I will call “Jane.”  Jane is a covenant-keeping member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Her life has many facets:  church service, full-time work, devotion to family, neighborliness, church callings.  She is smart and funny and faithful.  And, like all of us in mortality, she confronts heart-rending challenges—the greatest of which has to do with her family.  As her children matured, some of them began to choose different paths. She witnessed them making choices that she knew would lead to unhappiness, and she was heartbroken—even frantic.  She went over and over her parenting decisions of the past and was filled with guilt.  Maybe this was all her fault.  She found herself anxious and fearful—wondering what she could say and how and when she could say it so that the errant child would see the light and return.  She worried about every interaction with the child—her own, as well as her husband’s, the ward members’, the neighbors’—everyone’s!  To say she felt tormented and out of control would be accurate.


And she prayed.  My, did she pray!  Her heart was “drawn out in prayer unto him continually for [her own] welfare, and also for the welfare of [the children].”

One afternoon in fast meeting, she listened to a friend she admired describe how she had been troubled with a particular problem with one of her children and had determined to go to the temple once a week.  The friend then testified in gratitude that after many months her prayers had been answered, and the problem had been miraculously solved.

Jane was touched, she came home, kept praying, and felt inclined to make a personally ambitious yearly goal of temple attendance.  She felt sure that the Lord would honor such a significant personal sacrifice.  

Now I am going to interrupt our story here to point out some of the things we have talked about.  Jane had faith. She understood her relationship to her Father in Heaven.  She exhibited humility, an understanding that she needed divine help.  And she made an individual personal choice to pray.  As she continued her very personal conversation with the Lord, kept her covenants, and went to church, the Holy Ghost sent the words of her friend’s testimony deeply into her heart.  Continuing to pray, Jane acted on the promptings she received to attend the temple more often.  

Now let me continue with her story. Quoting Jane, “After 10 years of increased temple attendance and constant prayer, I am sorry to say that my children’s choices have not changed.” 


And then there was a pause…

“But I have.  I am a different woman.”     

“How?” I asked her.

“I have a softer heart. I am filled with compassion.  I can actually do more and am free of my fear, anxiety, guilt, blame, and dread.   I have given up my time limits and am able to wait on the Lord.  And I experience frequent manifestations of the Lord’s power.  He sends tender mercies, small messages that acknowledge His love for me and my children.  My expectations have changed.  Instead of expecting my children to change, I expect these frequent tender mercies and am full of gratitude for them.”  She continues, “I have a new openness and sensitivity to the Spirit and I no longer worry myself to death over what I will say and how I will say it.  If I feel inclined to speak, I don’t hesitate, and the words feel as if they are given to me.   
 
“All of my relationships are better, especially with my children and husband.  I can do and say things that I could never do or say before. My children are respectful of my temple devotion.  They are sweet and supportive of me, as is my husband.  He and I are cemented together by these difficulties rather than blaming and pulling apart.  Our marriage has never been more joyful. My ability to appreciate and enjoy the good things of my life is heightened.  I am simply more present.

“My prayers are changed.  I express more love and am more thankful.  I pray to be equal to the tasks before me.  I pray for an increase of charity and patience and faith. I am grateful for the trials that led me here. I wouldn't change a thing that has happened. The Lord works in marvelous ways and I truly am filled with the peace that passeth all understanding.”

Prayer and temple attendance are not dramatic, sensational, or one-time activities.   But repeated over and over, year after year, they are small and simple things by which great things come to pass.  In fact, this gradual process of change seems to be the way the Lord often works with us.  Yes, we have scriptural stories of seemingly sudden and complete change, but more often we become “new creatures"—like those in the city of Enoch—“in process of time.”


-Virginia H. Pearce, “Prayer:  A Small and Simple Thing” BYU Women's Conference April 28, 2011    Click Here

When you have come to the Lord in meekness and lowliness of heart and, as one mother said, “pounded on the doors of heaven to ask for, to plead for, to demand guidance and wisdom and help for this wondrous task,” that door is thrown open to provide you the influence and the help of all eternity. Claim the promises of the Savior of the world. Ask for the healing balm of the Atonement for whatever may be troubling you or your children. Know that in faith things will be made right in spite of you, or more correctly, because of you.

You can’t possibly do this alone, but you do have help. The Master of Heaven and Earth is there to bless you—He who resolutely goes after the lost sheep, sweeps thoroughly to find the lost coin, waits everlastingly for the return of the prodigal son. Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are and better than you have ever been as you try to make honest effort, however feeble you may sometimes feel that to be.

Remember, remember all the days of your motherhood: “Ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” ¹⁰

Rely on Him. Rely on Him heavily. Rely on Him forever. And “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.” ¹¹ You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master’s garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.” ¹² And it will make your children whole as well.

- Jeffery R Holland, "Because She is a Mother" General Conference - April 1997   Click Here