Back On Track

     It's been so long since I've written anything and it feels a little uncomfortable to start again. But I've procrastinated far too long and I'm afraid that many Ianisms are forgotten because of my laziness. Sitting in church today and listening to the talks that were given about family and family home evenings reminded me of many humorous moments over the years and inspired me to not only write them down, but to also be more diligent in teaching my children about the gospel.
     According to my kids, we never have family home evening. That is their perspective and it's wrong. For twenty years I have made valiant efforts to hold family home evening. Some efforts have been more successful than others. We do well as a family for several weeks, and then I poop out. After listening to general conference, I get inspired again and we make another effort. My point is that I never quit trying. While we may not hold it religiously each week, the desire is there and sometimes that desire translates into success. When I'm doing really well, we have family prayer too. Which brings to mind one of my many efforts about nine years ago, an effort that solidified my suspicion that God does indeed have a sense of humor.
     Scott was at the fire station so it was just me and my heathens. I'd made a commitment to myself to hold family prayer and just because the dad wasn't home didn't mean we could forget about it. This was our first effort in--well--a really long time. I gathered my children around me and we formed a circle on the floor, kneeling reverently. I asked someone to say it, I think it was Tawni, and we bowed our heads. That's when we all saw that someone else had decided to join our prayer. A large--quarter size--wolf spider was sitting in the middle of our circle. The pandemonium that ensued would have made a rock concert look like sunday school. There was screaming and jumping and running and pushing and furniture climbing. When the dust settled not one person remained on the floor. We all perched precarioulsy on the sofa or coffee table.
     "Did anyone squish it?" I asked.
     There was a lot of head shaking.
     I sighed, "Well it's not there anymore."
     We all inched a little further up on our perches.
     And that's how we had our first family prayer in over a year.
     I've often thought about that experience, trying to figure out which Heavenly Being sent the spider into our midst. My imaginings sound something like this:

     "Hey, Peter. The Bringhurst's are going to have family prayer."
     "No way. John? Get over and look at this."
     "Wow. Hey, you know what would be funny?"
     "Do it, James."

     Or maybe...

     "Sweetheart, look! The Bringhurst family is going to pray together. Get ready. I want you to answer this one right away. It's been so long."
     "Well look at that! HeeHee! Watch this, honey."
     "Don't you dare!"
     "Too late!"

     Tonight I decided to make another valiant effort. Not only were we going to have family prayer, but we would read scriptures too. The scripture reading went better than expected. The only problem was when I read the word "hell" and Ian clamped his hand over his mouth and said, "Mom! Don't swear!" I had to stop and explain that in the scriptures it was talking about a place and was okay and that it was different from when I get angry and yell at him. After our reading we knelt down to pray and Ian asked if he could say it. I told him he could but he had to make sure to be very reverent because he was talking to Heavenly Father. This is the prayer he said:

     "Heavenly Father, Thank you for these wonderful evil children. Bless Dad. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen."