Friday, July 31, 2015

Tender Moment Amidst the Chaos

This summer has been an unusual one.  We haven't really gone anywhere in anticipation of not getting a job right away.  It is the hottest summer on record.  Basically, we all sit around in our AC cooled house and alternately clean, fight, or watch copious amounts of TV.
I'm not proud of it.
I've thought about changing it up, but haven't found the courage to fight against the tide.
Last night, when everyone should have been in bed, but the boy was gone at a friend's house and the older girls had sneaked downstairs to finish the "last 5 minutes of the show we were watching," the wee one sat alone in her room and played with her dolls.  Suddenly, there was a wailing that interrupted the peace of the evening. She came into our room and was inconsolable.  We would never forgive her for what she had just said. It was the most horrible thing she could ever say.
Knowing that she had, on occasion, said she hated people (her siblings and us) without the bat of an eye, I couldn't imagine what it would be.
When we asked her if we could pray about it and see if she could get help from Heavenly Father, she began sobbing anew.
After a half hour of loves, stories, and snuggles, we finally got her to tell us that she had taken Heavenly Father's name in vain accidentally.
A part of me said, "Oh, baby.  That's no big deal." The smarter part of me honored her despair.  She has a relationship with her Heavenly Father and her Savior that people the world over would want. If, at seven, she understands that what slipped out of her mouth in a moment of play, can be hurtful and damage that relationship, she is years beyond her age.
We continued to talk and snuggle and affirm that her mistake was only that, a mistake.  We talked about how children under the age of 8 are automatically covered by the Atonement.  We talked about how we know that she loves her Heavenly Father and that she would never, on purpose, do something wrong. The night before she had come to us asking about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and why they had sinned.  At the time, we discussed the difference between a transgression and a sin and the part Adam and Eve played in the Plan of Salvation. Last night we reminded her of that conversation.
She finally stopped crying and settled down. Her poor little face was bruised from crying so hard and she had a huge headache, but she went to sleep peacefully.
I think I finally have the wherewithal to stop the tide of incessant garbage TV that has come in to our house this summer, innocuously infecting our minds and thoughts with things that make my baby cry.

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