Faith in Family Life

  One of the things that I did not grow up with a lot was a sense of religion. I remember as a kid I went with one of my friends to a church gathering and it was strange to me. To give a little context, my parents did not attend church while I was growing up and we did not join a church until I was 15. Now I don't blame my parents for not raising me in a religion, but I did have many friends who were part of a church, but none of them ever invited me to come with them. Now this wasn't their fault because they didn't know that I was looking for a sense of spiritual direction in my life.

     I find it interesting to note that very many communities in this nation are held together because of the bond of religion that they have in common. The same goes for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we come together as communities to help other members of the congregation. But it doesn't stop there, we reach out around the world to those that stand in need. The church is among one of the first to respond to natural disasters and other disasters around the world. Faith is something that causes us to act upon what we believe and pursue it to see the outcomes as Christ would.

     Now within our families, faith pushes us to follow the example of Christ and lead our families through revelation. There are multiple things that we can do as families to make sure that our faith is central to how our families operate. Things such as reading scriptures, praying (whether it be over meals, in the morning or evening, or before people leave the house), and going to church. All these things revolve around the family and brings us closer together through the experiences we share. Through my experiences and those that I've heard from others, many families have come to realize that their faith brought them closer together through whatever challenge that they went through.

     Now I understand that you don't need to have faith in your life or in your family to get through challenges. There are many people out there that do not believe in a higher power or a God-like figure and good for them! I have no problem with those kinds of people that don't believe in a higher power. I just believe that they are going through life without the extra help that some people need in their lives.

     Just remember that even though someone may share a different view of religion than you do, don't fight them to see everything your way. If we were all the same, everything would be boring and very depressing. Our differences is what makes us interesting and makes this world so amazing. I find the world so interesting and all the religions in the world make history and current events so interesting. Each of our faiths circle around a certain set of morals and while we may not agree on certain things, we should make sure that we don;t fight over these differences,

     Now I just want to focus on the family and how faith holds it together. Faith is such a great thing to help us increase our trust in the one person who knows us better than we know ourselves. Faith helps us overcome fear and become more like the person that He wants us to become. We as families need to remember that we are not perfect, but we are working towards becoming what we have potential to become.