TO BE A MOTHER OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS
It has been said that to better understand the purpose and practical application of true family organization, we need to be studying the great fathers, our ancestral mothers, sons and daughters throughout history. When we begin reading their stories and gathering the pieces together, a vision is revealed more glorious, exciting and fulfilling than any weak counterfeit. In talking with my girls last night we discussed how these faithful mothers and fathers hold the key to building multi-generational families. This has been the walk and talk of our home now for quite some time— discussing they who sought those blessings like Father Abraham, or Father Lehi and others.
Abraham, in the Pearl of Great Price teaches us how he wanted these blessings: “the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers”.
Just like many of us parents who desire a large righteous posterity—to be the “father of many nations” or a “mother of hundreds of millions” then how important—like for Isaac was it in finding a wife? The same desire of Abraham should be ours in helping to find the right spouse for our children. Isaac’s wife was pivotal in Abraham being able to receive his blessings, same for us if we desire what those ‘Fathers’ had. Isaac’s wife was so important that he sent his servant on a mission to find the right girl—a girl who would keep her covenants, a girl who understood what it meant to form an eternal family and have those same blessings.
I as a mother, have a responsibility to teach my daughters to be that “wife” that is sought after if she wants to pass on those blessings. I need to—send Rebekahs forth from my home, and teach my girls and granddaughters to understand their role in this great partnership of marriage—that they know what they have to do. What was Rebekah’s character that made her the kind of person to qualify to be a spouse. I feel it is critical to study and know these mothers and fathers and their children to spark that “inquiry” within our own children to “inquire after the knowledge of God.”
As Lectures of Faith says:
“…it was human testimony, and human testimony only, that excited this inquiry, in the first instance, in their minds. It was the credence they gave to the testimony of their fathers, this testimony having aroused their minds to inquire after the knowledge of God; the inquiry frequently terminated, indeed always terminated when rightly pursued, in the most glorious discoveries and eternal certainty.” (Lectures on Faith 2:56)
I believe I begin by first living that example of those ancestorial matriarchs in my home, in my family, in my marriage so my daughters can see it, so they want to have that kind of a family. It is my responsibility in passing down this faith, covenant, and that desire to “obtain” all what God has given, I must live it and teach it with so much clarity that what I teach can cut through all the noise and voices they are hearing and pierce their hearts and touch them. It has been said that we do not need to compete in volume or in the number of words, we just need to be very clear in our own covenant living, enough our children can see us sacrificing everything to obtain those blessings and all that the Father has.
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