Insights on the Family: The Crucibles of Life

"The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave"
(The Family: A Proclamation to the World).

The hard times we go through in life are sometimes referred to as crucibles. "A crucible is a furnace-like vessel that endures intense heat that refines and transfigures raw materials into a new, stronger substance" (Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives). The text continues to help us understand that the crucible helps to get rid of impurities and unify elements so that the end result creates a new object. 

Crucible pouring molten metal into a mold,

The reason trials are called crucibles is obviously because when we go through hard times, we are being refined and being made into new people. Once we have passed through something hard we often feel like a different person, and we cannot go back and be the same person we were before. Trials alone don't make us into better people. I think it depends on how we handle the trials. If we turn ourselves over to the Lord, it is through Him that we can have the trial turn into something beautiful.

Elder Richard G. Scott said, "It is important to understand that [the Lord's] healing can mean being cured, or having your burdens eased, or even coming to realize that it is worth it to endure to the end patiently, for God needs brave sons and daughters who are willing to be polished when in His wisdom that is His will" (To Be Healed). It is through the Lord that we can have strengths in our trials, power to overcome weaknesses, and blessings of healing. He can take our burdens and trials away, but I think He often just strengthens us as we work through them. He understands that we need the good and the bad experiences of life to become the kind of person he wants us to be.

Jesus Teaching in the Western Hemisphere (Jesus Christ Visits the Americas), by John Scott 

President James E. Faust said long ago, "Into every life there come the painful, despairing days of adversity and buffeting. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. The thorns that prick, that stick in the flesh, that hurt, often change lives which seem robbed of significance and hope. This change comes about through a refining process which often seems cruel and hard. In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master in building lives of faith, usefulness, beauty, and strength. For some, the refiner’s fire causes a loss of belief and faith in God, but those with eternal perspective understand that such refining is part of the perfection process" (The Refiner's Fire).

Though our trials, tribulations, and afflictions are hard, it is a way for us to be perfected through the atonement of the Savior. Below is a video I put together for my husband for our anniversary a while ago. The reason I share it is because the first song is by Julie de Azevedo entitled "Masterpiece." In this song she talks about how we can become who God wants us to be as we allow the Lord to shape us.

Insights on the Family: Love is spelled T-I-M-E

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities" (The Family: A Proclamation to the World). 

I have written about many of the principles listed in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the last one is wholesome recreational activities. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf  said, "In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key for harmony at home. We talk with, rather than about, each other. We learn from each other, and we appreciate our differences as well as our commonalities. We establish a divine bond with each other as we approach God together through family prayer, gospel study, and Sunday worship" (Of Things That Matter Most).

Brothers enjoying a story together.

As we spend time together not only doing the things that bring us closer to God, but also doing the things that bring us closer together, we will build strong families. The activities we do together vary from family to family, and the phase of life can change what we do together. When my children were really little, we enjoyed going to parks and playing with toys. We would sit and read books together and just being home seemed to be enough for them. Our family has grown out of the baby phase and we are in the middle of school and teenage phases. It is challenging trying to find wholesome recreation we can all do together and enjoy together. What it ends up coming down to is sacrifice. For all of us to enjoy time together, someone may have to sacrifice a personal want. I have seen that in the end, everyone usually is happy we spent time together.

Enjoying a walk together.

There are eight elements that I read (in Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives) that build the most meaningful experiences in people's lives:

1. We are confronting tasks that we have a chance of completing.
2. We are able to concentrate on what we are doing.
3. We have clear goals.
4. We receive immediate feedback.
5. We act with deep awareness and forget our own cares and worries.
6. The experience allows us to exercise a sense of control.
7. Our concern for self disappears, yet the sense of self becomes stronger after the experience.
8. The sense of duration of time is altered.

Making positive memories together doesn't necessarily mean having an expensive vacation, or going out and doing something sensational. Sometimes the most memorable times are the small moments in life. The times that we spend talking together, walking together, listening to each other. These are times where can enjoy each other's company without the hustle and bustle of life pushing us apart. I love the eighth element, "time is altered," because when we are truly enjoying time together, time seems to fly by.

Exploring the Solar Eclipse together.

My own family tries to find good times together that are simple and inexpensive. We like to read together, do some of our chores together (like shopping), swim together, go on drives together, take walks together, watch movies together, eat yummy treats together, and I am sure there are more. I hope that as I build up a lot of these little moments, my children will be able to look back on their childhood and have a fondness of remembering how much we love each other. I hope that as I continue to work making time for these moments, our family can be stronger.

A family that plays together stays together.

Insights on the Family: The Joy of Work

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of ... work."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

Work and joy? How can that be? Today we view work as something to get done so that we can go and do something fun or more enjoyable. Kathleen Bahr and colleagues said, "A common notion in Western culture, ...is that an ideal life is work-free." She then goes on to recount how Adam and Eve received commandments to go and "till the soil and bear and care for children. ... [and yet] we prefer life's bounties at minimal cost, without the so-called interruptions of children [and work]. In other words, we long for the life Adam and Eve left behind in the Garden of Eden" (Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives, p. 214).

It is hard to want to work "by the sweat of [our] face[s]" (Genesis 3:19). I know that I have memories of complaining about going out in the yard and having to weed the garden. Getting hot, sweaty, dusty, and dirty felt so uncomfortable. I still struggle with wanting to go out and do the yard work. Yet I have also come to love yard work as well. When I step back and see what I have done in my yard to take care of my plants I feel a deep satisfaction. It is a feeling of accomplishment and awe in how I have been able to create something beautiful.

Gardening isn't the only kind of work. There are different kinds of work that are involved in caring for our home and family. Clark goes to work to help provide for our family. I work in caring for our children and home. Together our family works to take care of the many tasks that keep our home clean and cared for. (At least we try to have the children help.)

It is often difficult to help the whole family be involved in working on taking care of a home. Kathleen Bahr et al. even says that the whole family is vital to the work done in the home. She then says, "To insist that children help when they would rather do their own thing does not damage self-esteem; it aids the discovery of true worth. Such insistence says, 'I need you. You are an essential member of our family. We cannot get along without you or your help'" (p. 221). 

Working together can be difficult, and I am sure we will and do hear a lot of complaints, but over the course of life as we keep striving to work together as a family, we will build unity and love. When I was a newly wed, Clark and I were able to work side-by-side in helping to work on repairing a home. As I look back on that hard work, I don't remember the sweat or weariness; I remember feeling so happy to be working together. It was such a fun memory even though it was hard. Taking care of our home everyday can be that way too. Even though it is hard, hopefully we will look back and remember how fun it was to do it together.

Working Together

I gathered as many pictures as I could find of our family working together and something magical happened. I have to admit that I have been having a pretty hard morning, just feeling down. Yet as I went through years of pictures we have stored digitally, and seeing the fun times we have had working together; I found myself not feeling quite so bad. As we work together, we can look back and see how that work has changed us. We can see how far we have come and how much we have learned. I know this helps me, and I am sure it will help my children learn many different kinds of skills. Work does bring joy because it helps us strive to become something more than we are. Through work we will discover our talents, abilities, and worth.