Teach Me Who I Am- The Red Headed Hostess

Last year I was sitting around with some of the young women in my ward,

trying to think of ways that we could remember which color goes with which young woman value.   Our goal was to tie the meaning of the value to the color somehow, like:  “I am going to CHOOSE between an apple and and ORANGE today!”  (Choice and Accountability = orange).   When we got to “Divine Nature” I asked them, “ok… so what is Divine Nature?”  And….  there was a really… loud… silence.  They couldn’t tell me what it was!  So I said, “Divine……..Nature……!”  what do those words mean separately?  “That my nature is divine?”  “YES!”, I said, “So what does that mean?”  “That I have a divine nature?”  “Exactly!  What does that mean?” “Um….. that my….nature….. is divine?”

Ok… I could see that we needed to talk about this.

“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a DIVINE NATURE and destiny.” (The Family:  A Proclamation to the World, emphasis added).

I often ask my students the question… “Why did we come to earth?”

And the most common answer is this:  “So we can return to Heavenly Father.”

“And….?”  I will probe.

“And gain a body.”

“And…?”

“A family?”

And… then I will turn with them to Moses 1:39.  THIS is important to grasp.  “For behold this is my work and my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”

Ok… I will write IMMORTALITY on the board.

“What is immortality?”

“Living forever!” … they usually know the answer.

“Good!  Living forever with a resurrected body!  Ok… What is ETERNAL LIFE?”

“Living forever!”…  they usually don’t know the answer.

So I will ask the girls in the class to tell me the very last word in their young women theme.

(Can YOU do it?)

—–

—–

“Exaltation” 🙂

Then I share this quote by President Spencer W. Kimball… “Immortality is to live forever in an assigned kingdom.  Eternal life is to gain exaltation in the highest heaven.”  (Ensign, November 1978, 72).

So what have we just learned?
1- That Eternal Life = Exaltation
2- That it exists in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom

Also, on lds.org, it says this about eternal life:  “Eternal life is the phrase used in scripture to define the quality of life that our Eternal Father lives.”

3- That Eternal life is the kind of life that Heavenly Father hs

This is what Elder Bruce R. McConkie said about this:  “We know that the name of the kind of life he lives is Eternal Life and that it consists of living in the family unit and of possessing all power, all might, and all dominion.”  (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, Ensign, Nov 1976, p.106)

So Eternal Life is the description of Heavenly Father’s life.  He doesn’t just live forever, but he has ETERNAL powers, ETERNAL posterity, and ETERNAL creations.  Not all of his children will gain exaltation, but we all have the divinity within us to become like Him.

“What does a kitten become?”  I will ask.

“A cat – duh!”

“What about a puppy?”

“A dog.”

“What about a child of God?”

“A… God” (This is often an ah-ha moment for a lot of kiddos)

“Yep!  Divine Naure!”

One year I was sitting in a meeting with Elder Ballard, as he was talking with a group of seminary teachers.  I will never forget something he said in that meeting.  “If my grandchild were in your seminary class, there is one thing I would want you to be certain to teach them….”  I remember this striking me with such force and knowing that since he was personalizing that statment to his grandchildren, whom he certainly adored, that it would hold much gravity.  “I would want you to teach them that they are a child of God.”

I remember hearing this quote about (then) Elder Eyring,

“Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles tells us a tender personal story that makes this point in a penetrating way.  When he was a teenager his family moved from a very comfortable environment for young Elder Eyring to a location that was not to his liking.  He sulked for a bit until the Spirit spoke directly to him about who he was in God’s plan and how he ought to proceed.  One day the Spirit instructed, ‘When you find out who you are, you will be sorry you didn’t try harder.’  I suspect this spiritual admonition for  more diligent effort is probably appropriate for most of us.  The Lord will lead us in our particular role if we will seek and follow His guidance.”   (Quoted by Elder Robert C. Oaks, BYU Devotional, ‘Understand Who You Are”21 March 2006.)

The understanding of who we really are, what that really means, and what that means we can become… can absolutely change our bearings in life.  It can effect every choice we make, the way we treat others, and how we see ourselves. 

It is pivotal.

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

 

Remember to visit the three other blogs hosting this celebration!

They have great things going on each day!  Montserrat from Chocolate on My Cranium,  Jocelyn from We Talk of Christ,  and Jaime from Welcome to the Madness.  Be sure to visit each blog every day!

And here is today’s GIVEAWAY!

From minimoments comes this sweet custom diversity family peg dolls. These make great open ended toys and are montessori and waldorf inspired. You will win one of the families already painted or get a custom painted straight-legged family (up to six members). Your choice!

Minimoments also sells diversity friend peg dolls and these cute customizable missionary dolls that can be made into Christmas ornaments.

 

 

 


38 comments

  7. What a lesson to teach. To teach them they ARE a child of God. As I struggle through being a mother (because who doesn’t?!) that lesson is one I hope I teach above all others.

  8. I love how you presented this lesson. It is so easy to understand that we are children of God but not so easy to put into practice. There are so many aspects to being good, repentance, and so forth. Often I feel sorry that I didn’t try harder at certain points in my life. Even now it’s a good, thought provoking lesson.

  11. I’ve had the same merry-go-round of questions about divine nature when I taught YW! Too funny. Just having taught Moses 1:39 yesterday in seminary – actually that whole chapter – that is what I focused on teaching. We are each a child of God!

  12. Love the way you explained divine nature! I was asked to go over divine nature with the YW for mutual this wednesday, what a great way to explain it, Thank you! Love your blog.

  14. What great thoughts! The child of God becoming a God was a bit of an aha moment for me too… I mean, I knew it but I’d never thought of it that way! 🙂

  15. This is great! I love your insights of divine nature. I never even thought about memorizing the colors but that is such a creative idea! Thanks so much!

  16. Great insights. I also really liked the comment that Elder Eyring said ‘When you find out who you are, you will be sorry you didn’t try harder.’ I will put that up on my mirror so I can see it every morning. What a great daily reminder of how we need to live our daily lives in such a way so that we will not be disappointed when we find out what our true potentials were. We will instead be happy to learn we became the person the Lord saw us to be.

  17. I love how you help your Young Women see that we come to earth to gain bodies because bodies are the means to the amazing family relationships of husband and wife and parent and child. Great posts and insights. thanks

  23. As I teach my children I like to ask them “why are you here on earth?”
    I think it brings everything into perspective school work, personal responsibilites, scripture study, kindness…
    Thanks for this article

  26. I love your site. I love this celebration. My brain is just cranking at the possibilities to teach my young ones… Thank you

  30. I love the way you presented Divine Nature and I love the quote from Pres. Eyring…‘When you find out who you are, you will be sorry you didn’t try harder.’ That among others struck a note within me. Thank you.

  32. I’m a little embarassed to admit that this gave ME, an adult, an “ah ha” moment. In my defense, I’m a convert and totally missed young women’s 🙂 Thank you so much for your insight.

  34. I love this! I teach the primary kids and I find that they often know the words but don’t get the meaning behind them.

    thanks for the lift!

  35. We did this last night for FHE and it worked wonderfully! Thank you for sharing this with all of us. We had a great discussion and I could see a few ‘ah-ha’ moments happening too. I love it when we invite and feel the Holy Ghost who always helps us learn something!!

  37. I found this post linked on Pinterest, but I suscribe to your blog and love every bit of it.

    I’m starting to see how Heavenly Father is molding me into who He needs me to be. I’m embracing the scary (to me) aspects of my callings as chances to grow and gain confidence which means I’m allowing Him to answer my prayer to become more like Him. Your post just wrapped all of this understanding together for me. All of your posts uplift me and inspire me to act…thank you.

  38. Love this post! After finding that all the kids in my daughter’s Sunday School class had no idea that our goal was to someday become gods and goddesses, I wrote an FHE lesson on this subject as well. When researching the lesson, I found that there are a lot of LDS people who are dubious about this concept, so included A LOT of quotes from general authorities as well as scriptures to support it. If you’re interested, you can find my lesson here: http://fhelessons.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/are-we-gods-in-embryo/

Leave a Reply