A few weeks ago our home teachers gave a lesson on “plucking the weeds from our lives”, or removing those things in our life that are draining our time and energy and keeping our spirit from growing. They challenged my family to remove one "weed" from our life for one week, and replace it with a faith building "seed".
As I thought about what weed I would remove I realized that without meaning to, I had gotten out of the habit of reading my scriptures privately and praying privately in the morning and at night. Our mornings were just so busy and once the kids were in bed at night Luke and I were both exhausted and couldn’t wait to relax in front of our favorite TV show... where I would usually fall asleep. We were still reading scriptures each night as a family, doing family home evening regularly, and saying all the routine family prayers and blessing all our meals, but I realized that while I had been trying to feed my kids spiritually, my spirit was starving.
So for one week I committed every morning to literally roll out of bed onto my knees, say a prayer and read the scriptures. Luke and I also committed to forgo our favorite TV show in the evenings until we had read the scriptures and prayed as a couple. I could not have imagined the change that would come over me after only a few days of this new routine. I felt the Spirit enter my heart and our home. It was truly as if the windows of heaven open to me. I felt a peace I had longed for and learned things from the scriptures only the Spirit could have taught.
As a result of bringing the Spirit into my life I was able to share it with my family. Our family scripture study and family home evening went from being a routine and a duty to being a spiritually uplifting experience for our entire family. Because I was becoming more spiritually self-reliant I was able to spiritually feed my children and those around me.
One cannot share what they don’t posses. This applies just as much to the spiritual things of life as the temporal. Silvia Allred gave a talk The Essence of True Discipleship this past conference in which she said, “Self-reliance is the ability to provide the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family. As we increase our own level of self-reliance, we increase our ability to help and serve others the way the Savior did.” I understand now, that in order for us to share the Gospel with our family and those around us, we must have a living testimony of it within ourselves. We cannot share what we do not have.
D&C 11: 21 “Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men”
