Several years ago I read Chris Heimerdinger’s series of
books entitled “Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites.” I have always liked reading
what I understand is totally fictional but fascinating, nonetheless,
time-travel stories, and this series revolved around the Book of Mormon.
The best chapter in the series was when the main character
and his kids managed to find themselves traveling from modern day America back
to the time Christ came to visit the people who inhabited this part of the
world over 2,000 years ago. I had five children at the time I read the series,
and reading the account, albeit fictional, of one father experiencing this
visitation by watching how the Savior interacted with his children really
grabbed hold of all those tender mom heartstrings.
That was a long time ago, more than 20 years, in fact. Since
that time I have had an old life pass away and a new one begin and thrive and
grow as well as having two more kids. I have had the blessing of teaching the
youth for several years, and just recently I was released from serving in the
Primary presidency in our ward. Working with these kids gave me a tiny taste of
what the Savior saw when He surrounded himself with the children in the Book of
Mormon. He saw them without the lens of exhaustion and frustration and pressure
and disappointment – okay, maybe he was disappointed, but certainly not in the children
– seeing them for who they really are:
Children of God, His and their father. Believe me when I tell you that I
have rarely felt the Spirit more strongly at church than I have in the Primary
room filled with all those wiggly, energetic, pure bodies.
How we must break our Father’s heart because of the way we
treat his children, especially the little ones. It is so clear in the scriptures
that God loves children most. He knows they are innocent, and He knows how we
frail, messed-up adults will treat them. How hard it must be for Him not to
scoop them up and take them away from all the harm we can do to them. But that is
not how the Plan of Happiness was designed. Yes, even though we suffer and hurt
and rage, we really are striving to live the Plan of Happiness.
If the Savior of the World made a point of spending hours
speaking to just these children – all who were near enough to come to where He
was – and bless them and love them and surround them with angels, I believe we
need to be concerned about how we treat them every day.
I love my kids, most of whom are now adults. I long for the
day I can hold my grandbabies in my arms and kiss them and love on them, all
while knowing that I am an imperfect person, but somehow still managing to give
them all the love I have.
Children are perfect. They are acted upon by imperfect
adults, and far too often they are molded into imperfect adults who will in
turn act upon perfect children. Can you even imagine the tears our Father in
Heaven must shed over our behavior? Surely we can do better than this.
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