71 Toes: Be the Light

Growing up we had a "major" and a "minor" for each school year just like they do in college.

My parents would choose what they were...whether it was education or music or service or one year it was even Spanish (I think that was the year we went and lived in Mexico for the summer).

(To find a list of our majors and minors, scroll down a bit in the post back HERE...my dad kept a record of them all in our "ancestor book.")

Well, I've thought about doing this on and off raising kids of my own, but finally we got serious this year and although we didn't get detailed enough to have an actual "major" and "minor," we decided to just come up with a "theme" for the year.

I thought about all kinds of things. I read through my spiritual notes through the years (I write them in a little book). I pulled out the scriptures. Then Dave and I had a little discussion about what we really want for our kids.

We came up with this:

Super simple, and not anything earth shattering, but that little saying embodies so much of what we want for these kids of ours. We want them to be lights. And in order for that to happen, they need to soak in the light of others, of each other, and light from above.

So the night before school started I set up the table all fancy with all kinds of "light" I could find around the house (and a yellow table cloth, because light you know ;), and prepped for a big "theme introduction dinner" before the school year began.

We read one of my favorite books together:

(This book is SO awesome. It's a story about how one person can make such a huge difference in someone else's life. I wrote more about that wonderful Mrs. Twinkle who is a "light" back HERE.)

And since then we have incorporated that little theme into a lot of what we talk about as a family.

...and have put little reminders around the house.

We try to remember to ask the kids how they were a light that day around the dinner table. And sometimes they'll spontaneously tell us how someone they know was a light as well. Lucy has started praying that we will be lights to others :)

This world of ours can use all the light we can shine.

So we are working on it in our little corner. Hopefully our home will generate a little more light this year.