A Fabulous Flashlight FHE

It's a typical crazy evening in our home. At 7:40 pm the kids are putting on their pajamas to get ready for bed, I'm cleaning up dinner after a long day of cleaning house and catching up from the weekend, and Dave is still hard at work in his office downstairs. Suddenly, it hits me, as if I didn't know so all day long, "It's Monday." The wheels start turning as I realize "It's already bedtime. What about Family Home Evening?" Then thought process begins to spiral downhill as I debate whether to quickly stress myself and scramble together some FHE lesson or to just throw it out the window and worry about it tomorrow or next week.

Unfortunately, it would have been so easy to 'give up and resolve to do better next week,' but I quickly recognized in my heart that regardless of my time and energy constraints, this was not one of those times. I knew this because just a few days earlier I had been spiritually uplifted by my Aunt Lianne and my Step-Mother Tammy as they shared with other family members and myself of the importance of inviting the Spirit into our homes. It gave me such a renewed dedication in striving to make my home a house of peace, a house of love, a house of order, etc. that I knew I had to act quick since I only had a few minutes to spare before the children's 'lack-of-sleep' meltdown began.

After finishing cleaning up dinner at 7:50 pm, I headed downstairs with the children to join their father and announced we were going to begin Family Home Evening. Honestly, at this point, I still had no idea what the lesson, songs, nor activities were to be, but only that we were having it. We began with a song and a prayer and then came the lesson, aka the hard part.

I had noticed just a few moments earlier as we were gathering together, Harris, our 4 year old energetic son, was running around playing with a flashlight. Since I knew I needed some kind of activity for the children, my mind started to buzz and then the idea came; "Flashlight Hide and Go Seek." This, of course, was the original game, but it would now include turning off the lights and using the flashlight to find those hiding. We managed to play enough rounds to give everyone a turn and encountered many complaints when it was time to stop for it was such a success!

After the game, it was time for the lesson. Hmmmm? What could we talk about that related to a flashlight? Well, next thing I knew we were reviewing the story of The Brother of Jared when he needed to light his barges. We discussed how his great faith allowed him to not only figure out how to light his barges by having The Lord touch his stones, but it also allowed him, TBOJ, to see Christ in person, as few have been so faithful. As strange as it may sound, we even kept the lights off and told the story by flashlight light. Halen, our 5 year old daughter, and Harris loved practicing The Brother of Jared's real name, while Brigden played with the flashlight.

We ended with another song and prayer and off the kids went to bed at 8:05. It was a modern day miracle; a successful uplifting and fun Family Home Evening in only 15 minutes from start to finish! What a blessing to have had such a great opportunity to spend quality time together as a family. Time will never be an excuse again, since I know that if I choose to make FHE a priority, the logistics such as the lesson and the activity will fall into place, thanks to the Spirit.