Montana Grandma

As I was doing my reading this morning I was reading this article in the Ensign. This paragraph touched my heart because it is something that I spend a lot of time pondering.

"Families across the Church are searching for ways to strengthen and protect their children against the evils around them…I am confident that there will be, increasingly, a reward given by God for their efforts. Those who never give up will find that God never gave up and that He will help them."

Especially now that I am a grandma and watch my little people and watch my children and how hard they are striving to safeguard their little families from the evils of the world I pray increasingly harder for them and for the Lord to protect them.

Then I was reading in my book "Simplify" by Carolyn Rasmus in the chapter "Fortify" and she was talking about this very thing. How do we fortify ourselves and therefore our families against all the evil in the world? She suggests that we need to focus on things that will fortify us spiritually. She quotes Elder Dallin H Oaks: "We need to make both temporal and spiritual preparation for the events prophesied at the time of the Second Coming. And the preparation most likely to be neglected is the one less visible and more difficult – the spiritual…There are many temporal causes of commotion, including wars and natural disasters, but an even greater cause of current "commotion" is spiritual." And then Elder Eyring again, "As the forces around us increase in intensity, whatever spiritual strength was once sufficient will not be enough. And whatever growth in spiritual strength we once thought was possible, greater growth will be made available to us. Both the need for spiritual strength and the opportunity to acquire it will increase at rates which we underestimate at our peril…I plead with you to do with determination the simple things that will move you forward spiritually…You have the right and the obligation to choose for yourselves. You can search the scriptures or not. You can choose to work hard enough, to ponder, and to obey His commandments so that the Holy Ghost can be your companion…Or you can choose to delay…If you will let your heart be drawn to the Savior and always remember Him, and if you will draw near to our Heavenly Father in prayer, you will have put on spiritual armor. You will be protected."

I love that promise by an apostle – You will be protected. And I also love that all the answers and the direction that we need are available to us as we study the scriptures, and ponder them, and obey the commandments and turn to the Lord. That is where the fortifying comes. That is where our strength is to live in this increasingly wicked world and find peace in the midst of it all.

Our little 18 month old grandson will get the scriptures and climb up on his daddy's lap and want to read them. Even at his tender young age when he can't talk or can't read yet he understands! He understands so much more than we do and I'm so grateful for his example, his simple little example and reminder to his parents that he wants them to read the scriptures to him.

I am so grateful for the evidences in my life that the Lord knows and understands the yearnings of my heart, and for an apostle who encourages me to "find ways to recognize and remember God's kindness". I am thankful for my little people who remind me to read my scriptures and say my prayers, those little people who are so close to Heavenly Father, who so recently were in His presence and who so desperately need us to help them in this world as they grow up.