I recently took down a blog post for the first time ever. If I thought the post were merely poorly-written or I was wrong about my position, I wouldn’t have taken it down.
But I draw the line at hurting people who are genuinely doing their best.
The post tackled the very sensitive subject of mothers working while raising children. I don’t feel I gave the proper context around my opinions and beliefs and a close friend told me the post hurt her feelings. I spent a good deal of time thinking about it and talking it over with Heidi. In the end, I decided to take it down and give myself some time to think about how I wanted to approach this subject that I feel very strongly about.
Instead of tackling just the subject of working mothers, I’ll step back a little and start with a broader context: families. Because my opinion on mothers working stems from my feelings about the family.
Okay, down to brass tacks. Why do I think families are so important?
It comes down to the nature of God and why we were created. God is perfect. According to the original Greek, “perfect” in the New Testament means whole or complete. In other words, there’s nowhere for Heavenly Father, personally, to go. He’s become the pinnacle of all that is good and righteous. He’s done.
Why then, does He exist?
According to Moses 1:39, He exists now to create children and give them the opportunity to become like He is:
“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
To Mormons, immortality means living forever, a free gift brought about by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Eternal life is living forever with God and becoming like Him. This is not a free gift but something that requires our best efforts in combination with the atonement of Jesus Christ.
In other words, God exists to help us become like Him.
This answers the question, “Why did we come to Earth?” We came because we needed to in order to become like God. We had to gain a body and go through the experience of living a faithful life out of God’s constant and immediate presence. There’s no other way to become like God. We had to come here.
To summarize, God exists to help us become like Him and we are here on Earth to gain the experience necessary to become like Him.
But what about the family? Why is that such a big deal?
The answer is that as parents, God is entrusting us with the training up of His precious children.
Remember, God only exists for one reason: to help us return to and become like Him. There is literally nothing more important, in all of eternity, than that one thing. And part of that training process, at least for some of us, is to learn, in a living laboratory, how to raise up a righteous, eternal family unto Him. Not to mention the precious souls who are depending on us for their early training.
Do you see why Satan would attack the family so vociferously? If he can distract a father with pornography, he’s destroyed the power of the priesthood in that home, removed the possibility of the Sprit influencing a full half of the parental team and virtually guaranteed that the children won’t have the best possible chance at exaltation.
If Satan can cause parents to take their eye off the goal (exaltation for their family) and become distracted by jobs, cars, boats, TV, internet and other things, he can open the door for the kids to be influenced by people who not only don’t have their eye on the goal but perhaps are fighting against the goal, knowingly or otherwise.
Why is the family so important?
Because that’s where gods are made. Because that’s where faith in Jesus Christ, essential to exaltation, is learned and exercised. Because our children came to us, trusting us to guide them to eternity.
That’s why the family is important to me.
I hope this point-of-view will help you understand where I’m coming from as I talk more about issues I think are important. I hope you’ll share your thoughts and feelings, too.
