A Letter To My Kids

I don't know how often I'll write these, even though at the moment I would love to say that every day I'll sit down and say a little something to my kids or to my family. I know that my writing falls short, is sub par. I know I'm not perfect, nor do I claim to be the world's best mother. But I do strive to teach my kids as God would have me. I don't care how any one else thinks I should rear my kids. No one has my same three kids and no one knows them like my husband and I do. But before that, not even we know them as much as God does. Therefore, we try our darnedest to hear the Lord, to hear our angels, to hear the Holy Ghost as they instruct us on how to not just raised good kids, but GREAT kids.

Tonight while tucking in my boys my youngest, age seven, held a small ice pack over his finger, just twenty minutes prior he jammed it and is now feeling throbbing pain from it.

As I go to kiss him goodnight he says to me something I've been hearing him say more often lately, "Every day is a bad day!"

I somberly told him that I didn't want to hear such words come out of his mouth anymore. How I want every day to be the best day for him. How I know that his future will have moments where every day WILL SEEM like a bad day.

But for now, while he's still little, while he still runs to me for hugs and kisses, while he's still under my care and concern, I don't ever, ever want him to believe that every day is a bad day.

The tears slid down his temples into his hairline, "It's because yesterday I fell down and then the day before..." as he goes on to justify why his days have been so bad, "And then tomorrow will be a bad day because my finger will still be hurting probably!"

I explained to him that the more he found each day to be a bad day, the more likely it was that the next day would be one too. "If it's our attitude that gives us a bad day, then our attitude can change it to make it good. And if it's not our attitude that makes it a bad day, maybe we can have a positive attitude so it won't get worse," I say.

My eyes looked at his sore finger, ice pack carefully placed on it, and considered this "bad day". I wanted to say more to him, things that wouldn't stick into his understanding at this age, especially right now while his mind was on the pain. But what I didn't tell him was my desire to ingrain those couple sentences so heavily into his subconscious now, while he's still young, before he grows to be an adult and either spends his life in "bad days" or spends a wrenching season of his life trying (if not his whole life) to remove what may be so seared into his soul that is deems nearly impossible.

I've been told, by just about everyone, that I think too much. That I over think things. That I could over analyze just about any situation.

And they're all right. But at that time I saw my little boy become a teenager, and then a grown man, going to bed every night with a lonely, heavy heart that I KNOW can be mended, but can be AVOIDED if my husband and I will do all we can to give him the tools he needs to take on the world, to rise above the hard times, to see the silver lining of his clouds, in other words, so the world doesn't take on him.

"You must understand that every day is a gift from God. Every morning when that sun rises that is Heavenly Father blessing us with another day to start fresh, even if it starts out with a sore finger."

He sighs, "OK...."

How I love my kids. How I hope that when I open my mouth to speak words of wisdom, comfort, guidance, love, that it is exactly what their souls need to hear. And I know that anything that I say that may be of help to them is not by my own voice. It's from God's.