We’ve all had ‘moments’ in our lives that influenced us for good; perhaps defining moments that altered our life trajectories, or foundational moments that awakened some sense of who we really are.
Some of my fondest early childhood memories involved our bedtime routine. My mom would come to each of us individually to tuck us in. She always said something nice about our day, and pulled our blankets up nice ‘n’ snug under our chins. It was a safe, comfortable way to close the day. She taught us to say a little prayer.
Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take.
It was a comforting little ritual, and the words themselves caused me to ponder God as I was closing my eyes. I considered what they meant. . . . .
“I pray thee Lord my soul to keep” sounded like I was asking Heavenly Father to take care of my soul while I was sleeping, since I couldn’t do it myself. I was sleeping.
“If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take” made me hope that God would take my soul and give it a good home since I wouldn’t be needing it anymore – if I were dead.
I never really understood them, but the ritual and repetition brought comfort to me – the words inspired godly thoughts that helped shape the beginning of my understanding of who I was.
When I was older and learned that prayers should be more personal, I still opened them with that little rhyme. It was a prayer my mother’s mother taught her, and I assume it was one her mother had taught her, since it’s been around that long – and much longer.
Though both my parents were born into it, we weren’t raised in the church. We were, however, all four of us baptized. I have often wondered what propelled my parents to make sure that happened, but I’ve always been grateful they did. Clearly, there was something that pulled them in that direction. I am ever SO grateful they followed through. Some of my aunts and uncles did not.
I admit when I was asked to speak in church on Spiritual Leadership in the Home recently, I wasn’t thrilled about the topic. I told the person who asked me if he’d have asked me 15 or 20 years earlier, I might have felt that I was rockin’ it, but lately I was feeling very inadequate. As I have been thinking about Spiritual Leadership in the Home, though, the spirit began opening new things for me to consider. Like the little prayer I told you about.
Like me, neither of my parents was raised in strong LDS homes, but they and all their siblings were baptized. In both their homes, it was their mothers who were the spiritual leaders.
My mother’s father was not a good dad, and not a good husband, and certainly not a spiritual leader in his home. He abdicated that responsibility to his wife, and he died at the age of 42 years, the father of 8 children. Though his death affected them all and caused great financial hardship, the older four did not miss him, the youngest never knew him, and the others had varying memories of him.
I’ve often wondered about him and the legacy he left his family. I assume from his vantage point in the spirit world, he has many regrets. I imagined he was not unlike Jacob Marley’s ghost, wishing he could undo a bunch of terrible choices. But lately, the spirit has me looking at him a bit differently.
It was his job to take care of his family. He was a good provider, but he should have done better on the home front. Leaving this earth did not take that responsibility away from him. Families are eternal. And when we die, we don’t get released from all our responsibilities to them.
I believe it may have been Jeffrey R. Holland who taught that guardian angels are real and that they are most likely family members who came before us, intimately connected with us and highly invested in our spiritual well-being and progression. Russel M. Nelson taught that the most important job any of us could ever be involved in is the gathering of Israel, on BOTH sides of the veil.
What if those of our family members who’ve passed away continue to be interested in us?
They know us. What if they truly love us?
What if they see the good in us and also the challenges we currently struggle with?
What if my grandfather repented of the things he did in this world? Repented of breaking the heart of his wife and losing the confidence of his children.
What if he is sorrowing for the generational trauma he caused?
What if he truly wants to make things better for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren?
What if he were given the chance to do that?
So this Spiritual Leadership in the Home thing . . . . .
Whose job is that anyway?
Dads? Moms? What if it’s both of our jobs?
And what if we don’t ever get released from that calling when we die?
It wasn’t my dad who took the spiritual lead in the family I grew up in.
It was my mom who made sure we blessed our food and said our little prayers at bedtime. We didn’t go to church often in my young years, but when we did, it was she who took us.
We didn’t live the “Word of Wisdom” or read scriptures. My mom smoked the whole drive to church (and then popped a piece of gum in her mouth so nobody would know lol). My dad spent a lotta time in the bar with other dads who should have been home. We had a Bible, and I liked to look at the pictures in it. I didn’t know any of those stories, and neither did she, but I’m confident it was she who made sure we were baptized. It was she who spent her evenings with us, read to us, tucked us into bed and made us oatmeal for breakfast.
It was she who planted the seeds of love we would come back to.
My father’s brother entered our lives when I was 10 years old. He was transferred to CFB Cold Lake, where we lived – both these brothers being in the Royal Canadian Air Force (as it was called then). It didn’t take long for me to notice that my dad was a better dad when my uncle was around. Over the next two years, it was my uncle’s family who influenced me and quietly tutored me in my values, my character, and my understanding of what a strong, caring family could look like. It was my father’s brother who, after having left this life many years later, continued to work with my dad from the spirit world, until we were sealed together as a family in the temple.
I asked my dad as we walked out of the temple that day “Why now? …. After ALL this time, and after all the things we tried, why Now?”
He said, “It was Uncle Merlin’s death.”
He meant that for the first time in his life, he stared mortality in the mirror and decided he had better start cramming for his final exams, but I came to realize that he was ‘righter’ than he thought. Though my uncle was the younger brother, he was a great example of what a GOOD MAN looked like. I had four girl cousins, three of whom were all within a year of me: one a year younger, one the same age, and one a year older. So I spent more time in my cousins’ home than my siblings did. I saw what a faith-filled home looked like and felt like. When I was only 11 years old, I consciously knew that when I grew up, I wanted to marry someone like my uncle, not someone like my dad (bless his heart). That was one of those defining moments I mentioned earlier, and even from that tender adolescent age, it changed the course of my life.
Uncle Merlin had done all he could for my dad in this life. But after he died, he had different ‘access’. They were no longer miles apart. I don’t pretend to know how things in the spirit world work, but I know Uncle Merlin was with us in the temple that day. There was no way he wouldn’t have been. He literally changed the trajectory of my family’s life and relationship forever – through love and example. And his family did the same.
To be clear, that change of course wasn’t a sharp turn. It wasn’t a right angle.
It was a very slight shift—almost imperceptible at the time—that took decades to fully reveal itself.
But it was pivotal.
And along the way, I learned an important lesson:
If you’re ever going to come back, it helps to have something to come back to.
Sometimes we might get impatient when things aren’t moving quickly enough. There were times I didn’t believe anything in my family could change. But I knew I was baptized. I was on the records of the church. I belonged. I had received the gift of the Holy Ghost, who never let me down. And when I decided I wanted to come back, there was a place for me.
~
When I married Dan, he was not a member of the church. He had been attending church every Sunday for the year we dated, because that was where I was. He committed to baptism a time or two, but then changed his mind. His family was not happy with this whole “Mormon thing,” and they didn’t like that Dan seemed to be changing right before their eyes. He wasn’t resolute about the gospel, but he was resolute about me. And the good people in the Cherry Grove ward (which was where I went to church) were kind and welcoming to him. You could even say they were loving. They modelled what a ward family was and what life with the gospel could look like. Among them, and in my Uncle Merlin’s home, he felt the spirit for the first time.
A year after we were married, Dan was baptized.
A week or two later, he started smoking again—and so began a roller coaster.
There were times he felt deeply loved by God, and others when he felt like a dismal disappointment. Such is the nature of addiction, pulling a person back and forth, between hope and shame, between resolve and relapse.
That pattern lasted for over 30 years.
During that time, we raised five children. One by one, most of them came to realize that their dad smoked. And one by one, they came to me—each carrying the same difficult question in their own way.
I would ask them, “Are you trying to tell me that you think Dad smokes?”
“YES!”
“And you want to know that I know?”
“YES!”
“Okay. I know, And I have one thing to say. Your dad is a good man.
He has an addiction that none of us can fully understand, and it beats him up sometimes. It’s between him and God. But here’s what I do understand…”
“Charity is the pure love of Christ—and it endures forever. Moroni taught that if we don’t have charity, nothing else we do really matters. It all counts for nothing. Because charity is greater than all. Your dad has charity. He would give the shirt off his back—I’ve seen him do it, and so have you. God counts charity.
In the meantime, we’ll support him. As long as Dad stops one time more than he starts, he’s still on the right road.”
Spiritual leadership in the home is not about doing everything right. It’s not about never making mistakes. It’s about being real. It’s about knowing that God loves us—and choosing to love Him.
It’s not about being better than anyone else, but about knowing who you are.
It’s about being a window to God’s love. Julie de Azevedo wrote a song by that title –
“I want to be a window to His love
So when you look at me, you will see Him.
I want to be so pure and clear
That you won’t see me standing here
‘Cause His love will shine brightly through me.
…
I want to be a doorway to the truth
So when you walk behond, you will find Him.
I want to stand so straight and tall
That you won’t notice me at all
And through my open door He will be seen.”
Spiritual Leadership in the home when you have young children involves training and teaching and modeling. And sacrifice.
It is about protecting your home emotionally and spiritually.
When your kids get older, it also involves letting them see struggle and faith, and letting God prevail. It involves a lot of humility and hoping you did right when you had the chance, because the years have flown by and you need to start letting go. And it involves MORE sacrifice.
When they become adults, there is an added dimension, and it becomes quieter.
Spiritual Leadership now means worrying about them—and praying for them—more than you ever have before.
It means trusting that your God is also their God, whether they recognize Him or not.
It means understanding that your job as a parent will never be over.
And you continue to love. You continue to sacrifice.
And you hold onto one quiet, steady hope:
That if they ever choose to come back, they know they have something to come back to.
As I reflected on all of this, I asked a friend this week for her thoughts on spiritual leadership in the home. Her words are a fitting way to close.
She said, “Love makes everything else work. There is always room to love better and deeper; always room to be kinder and softer; and always room to try to see things from another’s perspective, rather than just our own.”
I whole heartedly agree.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings.
Warmly,
Cindy Suelzle
