A couple of weeks ago I was praying to know what specific things to teach my children. I was amazed when the thoughts and ideas started flowing! I grabbed my journal and started jotting things down. One of the things was to teach my children the parable of the ten virgins. It is found in Matthew in the 25th chapter. Right after I had this little “planning session” with my Father in Heaven, my general conference Ensign came in the mail. I had watched general conference, but I am always happy to go over every little word in print. I was so excited to see this particular parable mentioned in one of the talks.
I was even more surprised when I remembered that we had a kerosene lamp we use for emergencies and I could have an object lesson… super fun!
I was even more surprised when the sunday night before our FHE, we needed the kerosene lamp because we ended up with no electricity for almost 4 hours.
Heavenly Father was making things easy for me! I had the lamp out, the general conference Ensign, the scriptures marked and ready. Then my son asked if he could invite his friend who lives across the street from us. Missionary moment! So that monday night we all sat in the living room for a simple FHE that hopefully would be a good missionary tool also.
I was blessed to be able to share the highlighted portions from Sister Cook’s talk, and I was so impressed with the way the kids latched right on to the idea that we need to constantly be filling our spiritual lamps. Every good deed you do, every kind word you say, every prayer, every Scripture read, adds a drop of oil to your lamps. Drop by drop we add spiritual knowledge to our lamps. I was excited when my ten year old son started explaining to his friend….. “we need to be prepared for when Christ comes again.” I was blessed to listen to my son as he shared his testimony of Christ’s second coming and how he was ready to start adding more drops to his lamp! Then the boys got a big kick out of my husband putting the kerosene oil in the lamp and lighting it! In fact the neighbor boy said, “hey, you used that lamp last night- I saw it in your window!” We were able to tell him that we had been physically prepared in case of a power outage, just like we need to be spiritually prepared for when Christ comes. It was a wonderful, spiritual FHE and it only took about twenty minutes! Sometimes the most powerful lessons are the simplest.
While doing my own research into the parable of the ten virgins, I found so many things that I personally need to work on. But that will be a post for another day! Today , I share with you what we did for FHE…. maybe soon I will share my personal thoughts on how I can become a better person thru this parable. How thankful I am for Christ’s teachings and examples!
2 comments:
Hello from Australia. i was thinking of you last week and was so glad to see your name on pinterest so I back tracked to find you again. i have retired (well forced too) from homeschooling and from driving amongst other things. But in my trials I have been really drawn to this parable. I have felt through no real fault or slackness of my own, but my oil draining from my lamp. I once would never have found myself with anything other than a full lamp. Now i look at the other 5 virgins and feel that sometimes they get a bad wrap because i look at them and think that at least they were willing to die trying. But for me if the bride groom came on many a day i would just lie down and 'come what may'. I'm so grateful for all the Saviours teachings on mercy. I'll go and read the link you posted. Hope all is well with you as i know you had many health trials of your own. How are the little ones. Not so little I'm sure. With love from Australia
I have been searching post liked this and my favorite perspective so far is http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/converted-unto-the-lord?lang=eng&query=ten+virgins
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