Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Each month, my church issues a magazine entitled The Ensign.  Each issue has a "First Presidency Message".  It's a message that the prophet and his counselors feel will uplift and encourage us to be our best selves.  This is an excerpt from this month's message by President Henry B. Eyring:

"Once, as I sat by my father’s bedside through the night, he talked about his childhood. He spoke of the love of his parents in difficult times and of the love of his Heavenly Father and the Savior. I knew he was dying of cancer, so it did not surprise me that at times he mixed up his feelings for his Heavenly Father with the love and kindness of his earthly father. My father had often said that when he prayed, he thought he could see in his mind the smile of Heavenly Father. 

His parents had taught him by example to pray as if he spoke to God and that God would answer him in love. He needed that example to the end. When the pain became intense, we found him in the morning on his knees by the bed. He had been too weak to get back into bed. He told us he had been praying to ask his Heavenly Father why he had to suffer so much when he had always tried to be good. He said a kindly answer came: “God needs brave sons.” 

And so he soldiered on to the end, trusting that God loved him, listened to him, and would lift him up. He was blessed to have known early and to never forget that a loving God is as close as a prayer."

There's not much else that I feel stronger about than the power of prayer, and I was reminded of that when I read that message.  When all else fails for me, prayer seems to be the thing that picks me back up and reminds me of the love that God has for me.  I'll always be grateful for that connection with God, and hope that I can help my kids to feel that connection too.  I thought of my dad when I read this message by President Eyring.  My dad has taught me so much about prayer and discipleship through his example.  We didn't have many sit-down one-on-ones where he straight-forwardly laid out the gospel and why prayer was important.  But instead, I saw him pray.  I knew he prayed in his closet privately before he went about his day.  That was much more powerful to me than anything he could have said.

I hope I can be that example for my own kids.  Where I speak more by my actions than by my words.