A great teaching moment!

My kids have been bickering and fighting all week long and I had finally had enough of it!  Today we are suppose to go out for a field trip and do some grocery shopping.  But again all they have done was fight fight fight!.... So they were each assigned to write 100 times "I will control my actions and show love to others through my actions."  As I was making breakfast and contemplating hiring a babysitter so I could get the needed groceries we needed for the next 2 weeks my mind reflected on the Savior and what he would do.  I sat there watching my kids write lines...some had excepted and were happy about it and others were murmuring and and complaining about it and still had not excepted the consequence of their actions.  While some of us come to Christ willingly there are some of us that fight and put up a wall...but Christ is always there to show love and mercy to us when we let him.  I called all the kids to breakfast and let them eat.  They were eager to eat and get back to writing and finish so they could go and have fun today!  But the spirit was overwhelming and I knew that a lesson needed to be taught.  I started to teach them of the woman that was brought to the Savior being accused of adultery.  Christ asked those thine accusers if they had sinned...them that had not sinned to cast the first stone....nobody had picked up a stone...instead they had all left because they knew that they were not without sin...And then Christ said to the woman....thy sins are forgiven, go and sin no more.  As I shared that with my children...I had tears streaming down my face...and all the kids were now intently listening and wanting to comfort me.  I imagined that this is how Christ must feel when he sees one of us making mistakes and then realizing what we had done coming to him and asking him to help us.  I then took my kids papers and told them to go and sin no more...the look on their faces were priceless as tears started to well up in their eyes as well.  The mood of our home was different and their attitudes have been amazing.  I know that as we follow the spirit and listen to his guidance we can have happy homes!  God knows each of his children individually!  He knew that I needed this lesson and that my kids needed to know that mercy does exist and that as we work our hardest and do our best that Christ does and will make up the difference!


And then there was the one that did not want to take hold of that mercy and thought that only justice should be carried out.  And so that one finished with the assigned 100 lines without a cheerful attitude.  With out a repentent heart...even when offered mercy.  That road is filled with resentment and anger and many other things that drive the spirit away.  And what do we do for those we continue to pray for them and show love to them even if we know they will turn it away.  Relying wholly on the merits of our Savior trusting that he will make them whole....We always love and never judge!