On school mornings, I wake Stella and Elliot up extra early so that we can read scriptures together before Mabel and Oliver leave for their bus. It is hard to wake them up when I know that they could easily sleep for another hour, but this is why I do it: Elder Richard G. Scott said, "Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media." I have to repeat this to myself almost every morning as I hear Stella's alarm beeping downstairs.
Before I started waking them up early, our mornings were hectic. I was always hurrying slow-moving Stella along, and very often she got out the door nearly late to school, and not on the best foot. Now our mornings are easy and slow. There is plenty of time to finish up last night's homework, or jump on the trampoline, or spend half an hour in the bathroom if they need to. Waking up early to read scriptures together completely changed the dynamic of our mornings. Our mornings are mostly peaceful and calm now. They are happy.
Anyway, I have a testimony of early morning scripture study. Right now I read to them while they eat their breakfast, but I know eventually I need to get them more involved. How does it work at your house?
My kids are headed to my in-law's cabin this weekend. Mike and I have an overnight retreat for his new MBA class. Even though we're local, they're putting us up at a hotel. I'm hoping to skip out on some of the meetings and take a nap. It's going to be fun, but I already miss the kids!
What do you have planned?
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This is how we do it at our house: My alarm goes off at 6:45am, I stumble out of bed, down the hall and open my kids doors mumble out a greeting along the lines of " rise and shine", but a lot of times like "get up".
ReplyDeleteThen we all meet in the living room where my husband who is infinitely more alert in the mornings than I am, will remind all of us what page of scriptures we are on today....which seems to be the moment that the kids remember they need their scriptures, so there is shuffling while everyone finds their own scriptures. Once we all have our scriptures and are turned to the right page (which my husband usually has to tell us about 10 times before we all get it)- we divide up the verses to read one page and we all take a turn reading.
After we finish reading, in theory we all kneel by the coffee table for family prayer, but it really ends up my husband kneels by the coffee table - one of the girls perches on his back (as if he were giving them a horse ride), my son kneels at the chair and my other daughter usually snuggles up to me, my goal is to get as close the floor as I can without looking like I am actually laying on the floor...and then we pray.
The girls scramble to get ready after that- even though they don't have to leave until 8am. My son, who has to leave at 7:45 races back to bed and lays there until 7:20 and then its a mad dash to get him out of the house by 7:45.
I'm not sure how we are going to work it next year when he starts early morning seminary.