Growing up like any other Mormon raised kid, I had the song "Families Can Be Together Forever" ingrained into my brain. It was sung every Sunday from nursery up to primary, and sometimes, even all the way up to young women's.
I have a family here on earth
they are so good to me
I want to share my life with them through all eternity
Families can be together forever
through Heavenly Father's plan
I always want to be with my own family
and the Lord has shown me how I can,
the Lord has shown me how I can
While I am in my early years
I'll prepare most carefully
so I can marry in God's temple for eternity
Families can be together forever
through Heavenly Father's plan
I always want to be with my own family
and the Lord has shown me how I can,
the Lord has shown me how I can
Genius, right? Put a child's life expectations into a catchy song an they'll remember it forever.
At six years old I knew that I belonged to an eternal family and that someday I was to create my own.
But what's the image that pops into your
mind when you hear "eternal family" ?
I see a kitchen. It's clean, spacious, and beautifully decorated. You know, a kitchen worthy of Pinterest. The late afternoon sun is streaming through the windows. Dinner is in the oven, close to being done because you can smell how good it's gonna taste.
A frilly apron-ed mother is beginning to set the table. She is beautiful, smiling, and has that welcoming "Latter Day Saint twinkle" in her eye.
Children sit at the counter, furrowed brows and tongues pressed to their lips, doing their homework. It's so happily quiet you can hear the gentle scratch of their pencils as they write.
A baby sits in a high chair cooing and clapping, munching the cheerios placed before her.
A clock is placed on the wall next to the most recent family picture, and a picture of Christ- it reads 5:05 and a handsome, clean shaven husband walks through the back door. The children run to him and welcome him home, hanging on his arms and legs as he walks. He kisses his wife sweetly, and they all sit down for dinner.
Is that what you see too?
If this is what a forever family looks like...
then my family is not forever.
More often than not, I think it looks like this..
The kitchen has dishes overflowing in the sink all the way from the night before. An exhausted mother is hastily throwing ingredients into a boiling pot while a child tugs on her pant leg whining, "Mom. Mommy. Mommy I'm hungry." As if she didn't already know. She is so overwhelmed with all the things that have yet to be done and taken care of, that she has long forgotten how hungry she is herself.
The other children are in the other room loudly bickering over something, and the baby is crying in her high chair because although she is clearly tired, she refused her nap.
A worn out husband comes through the back door at 5:50, late because he hadn't had time to finish all his work. His head is already pounding as it is, so he heads straight back into the office. The weight of making ends meet and providing for the family are evident in his face.
Or maybe there isn't even a husband.
Or a wife..
Maybe they are a single parent.
It's time for dinner. The hungry child sits at the table, impatiently banging his silverware. The other two children continue bickering in their seats and have now started to poke and pinch one another... The baby is still wailing in the background.
Finally, the parent yells.
Loud, harsh words are said.
Feelings are hurt.
And dinner is eaten too quickly, and too quietly.
I often have to remind myself, that the "picture perfect forever family" image I have in my head is not accurate. But how did that image get there in the first place?
I believe Satan uses this image as a tool. Satan hates families, and he works so very hard to destroy them. So much damage can easily be done if he can break apart a family- it's a domino effect that does the work all by itself if he can just get it started.
Satan wants us to think that if our family doesn't look like like that then...
...we are failing.
...then we are doing something wrong.
...then we have lost.
...then we should just give up.
Remember that these are lies.
We must remember that right now...
...forever families aren't perfect.
...forever families fight.
...forever families go through the hardest of trials.
...forever families are all different.
...and no family is "picture perfect".
I guess what I'm trying to say is...
What makes a forever family isn't a picture perfect family home evening every Monday, or getting everyone to church 10 minutes early every week..
What makes a forever family is that you try, and that you
keep on trying.
My family is going to be forever not because we live the picture
perfect life (because we don't), but because we are always going to try.
