A discussion at church

Recently at church in our Relief Society meeting (which is the gathering of our women) we had a wonderful lesson on how to build a spiritual fortress for our family. 

Or in other words: 
how to have a loving home, 
a haven from the outside world, 
a "safe place to fall", 
a Christ centered home. 

Our "lessons" are more like a discussion. Such a great exchange of ideas and feelings. 

So from our latest "discussion" I made a list of what some had to say about "building a spiritual fortress in their home": 

1. One woman of small children says she keeps a journal that she writes in about every month ("or once a year," as she laughs) about the attributes of each of her children so they can look back on them later, and maybe even in their teenage years when they are no longer talking to her. (She's a young mom, she will find out teenage years are not usually so bad.)

2. A mom of 4 says she prays to keep out the evil in their home and then she notices she welcomes it in when the TV is on with a bad program. (this is a very honest group)

3. Someone mentioned that "music can calm the spirit quicker than anything else." 

4. One woman mentioned how much the weekly Come Follow Me Program is helping their family. 

5. One woman raised her hand quickly and said, "We all need solace."

6. One said to "make sure we teach our children and don't just assume they know things." (This reminds me of the saying I heard years ago that we not only need to practice what we preach, we also need to preach what we practice.)

7. "We should have open communication in our home about everything and anything."

8. "Be interested in what our children are all about."

9. "Tell your family often that you love them so they will want to be in your family fortress, and not on the outside of it." (I think this was one of my favorites!)

10. "Remember the miracle of God is he can make our difficulties into our strengths."

11. One woman mentioned that she heard from another mom in the ward (who was not present that day) that she teaches her children to serve each other. A few moms said, "I want to know what she means by that. How does she do that?"

12. "Hard times we go through as a family can make us strong."

13. And this one's mine: I was listening to a talk show recently and the commentator was saying that parents are not teaching their kids values any more. She said, "When the hall monitors have left their posts, we're big trouble!"