During our busy schedule over the past year, we would take the time to visit a most sacred place as a family: the temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The closest temples from our home near Mobile, Alabama are the Baton Rouge, Louisiana temple, which is a three hour drive west and the Birmingham Alabama temple, a four hour drive north.
This past weekend we had the opportunity to visit the Baton Rouge temple to do some family history. At the end of this long day, we were eating waffle French toast at the kitchen table and my youngest son said, “We just spent the day with God”. I felt that was very profound.
It is like spending the day with God. We drive three or four hours to a place where we think about our family and God then we spend three or four hours at the temple doing our family work and then we drive the long way home pondering those experiences we had at the temple. We spend the day with God.
There are other ways families can spend the day with God. When we serve others who are in need of our help we are serving God. Over the Christmas holiday we found a family who had been homeless. They lived in their car for a few days before they found a dirty, leaky, drafty old trailer to move into temporarily until they could find something better they could afford. Weeks went by and there was nothing. It was a terrible place and the mother of the family was getting discouraged and desperate. I found out about it and just so happened to know of a cute little house for rent which they could afford a few miles from my house. It was like magic. Everything fell into place and with the help of a few other families we collected furniture, clothes, bedding, kitchen supplies and food.
What a wonderful Christmas holiday they had and this couple could go to their jobs with their children at school and not worry about going home to find a broken down trailer. It was such a great feeling of accomplishment. We spent another day with God helping them and it was a wonderful Christmas holiday because of it.
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Encouraging words about this topic was given in a talk from the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Thomas S. Monson are: “My brothers and sisters, we are surrounded by those in need of our attention, our encouragement, our support, our comfort, our kindness—be they family members, friends, acquaintances, or strangers. We are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift His children. He is dependent upon each of us.”
We are the hands that help others and our time here on earth can be meaningful and fore filling. With all the days we spend on work, we need to spend one day every so often with God.
Valerie Steimle has been writing as a family advocate for over 25 years. As a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she promotes Christian living in her writings and is the mother of nine children and grandmother to twelve. Mrs. Steimle authored six books and is a contributing writer to several online websites. To her, time is the most precious commodity we have and knows we should spend it wisely.
To read more of Valerie's work, visit her at her website, The Blessings of Family Life.
