Become as a little child...

3 Nephi 11:38

38 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

In Sunday School a couple of weeks ago the teacher was talking about becoming as a little child, and he asked me 2 weeks prior to share thoughts about Gavin and what traits he possesses that we should strive to have. It was a fun little assignment to think about Gavin and watch him...here are some of the thoughts I shared:

1. Whenever Gavin prays he names all the people in our family and says how grateful he is for them. The one thing that always stands out to me is he always includes Christ in this list. So his prayer goes like this: "I thank thee for Luke, Emma and Mama, and daddy and Eva and Jesus." I need to be more like Gavin in that I need to have such a strong faith and belief in Christ so that it is like he is part of our family!
2. He always expresses his love for each member of the family, and again Jesus is included in this list of family members...he says: "I love Luke, and Emma, and Mama, and Daddy and Eva and Jesus". I need to be more like Gavin and express my love for my family more often and the love for my Savior more often!
3. Gavin is so complimentary! He was out playing baseball with Matt the other day, Matt would pitch the ball and I would hear Gavin yell out "Good pitch Dad!" A little while later Matt was up to bat and Gavin was pitching. I would hear the bat hit the ball and immediately I would hear Gavin "Good hit Dad!" The next day I was out there playing baseball and the same thing was happening..."Good throw Mom!" and the same for my batting "Good hit Mom!" He is like this in other things too...If I change my hair he is the first to notice and compliment me on it. Or if he likes my outfit! I need to be more like Gavin and take notice of people's strengths and successes and COMPLIMENT them!
4. Gavin takes constructive criticism well and puts it into action. Once after Gavin said our family prayer, Matt told him about how we need to use the words Thee, and Thou when referring to Heavenly Father. He explained the reverence and respect we need to use during our prayers. Inside I was thinking Matt was a little off his rocker trying to teach this concept to a then 3 year old. I was amazed when the following days, without much reminding, his prayers were well thought out and contained the Thee's and Thou's that Matt had taught him about. I need to be more like Gavin and LISTEN and LEARN and then ACT on those things I have learned.

I was so grateful for this little assignment I received and that I was able to really take this scripture and apply it and learn from my little child.

Another experience tonight is what reminded me of this scripture. I was going to shut the garage and totally forgot that I had left the back van door open. The garage door made an awful noise as it tried to close and was forcing the van door to close at the same time! I screamed and RAN to the button to stop the garage door from continuing it's descent. When the garage door went back up it was making a screeching sound that I knew meant trouble! Matt heard my scream and came running to see what had happened. I just stood there motionless not even wanting to see what had happened to my van or the garage door. Luckily the van was unharmed, but as for the garage door, we knew there was trouble. We couldn't even get it to close! The kids knew there was trouble and ran upstairs to steer clear, I think they could tell Matt wasn't happy with me and I for sure wasn't happy with myself. Matt and I kept trying to force the door down...he was pounding on the tracks with a mallet and I was pulling the uneven door on one side and pushing on the other side. Suddenly we somehow got the door to manually shut. Then when we pushed the button IT WORKED! Right as it worked Emma came running down to let me know she was upstairs PRAYING for our garage door to work. I know it wasn't Matt's pounding or my pulling that made this miracle happen....it was the righteous, faith filled prayer of this sweet little child! I know it sounds silly and cliche, but it is so cool to see that when a trial comes the first thing a child does is PRAY!