Sunday, May 17, 2009

Rites of Passage

This past week has been quite memorable. Maybe not in the same realm as baptism, being called as a missionary, or going to the temple, but our family experienced some important events.

Let me digress and name my family:
My wife: Goodlookin'
Oldest son: Bear
Flyboy's wife: Photogirl
Oldest daughter: Miss Priss
Youngest daughter: Kiddo
Kiddo's hubby: Red-Tux
Youngest son: Scooter

Now back to memorable events. In chronicological order:
A week ago Saturday, Scooter received his Eagle Scout Award.
This week, Goodlookin' and I celebrated our 24th anniversary.
This last Saturday, Kiddo graduated from college.

As Goodlookin and I were driving back home last night, we talked about the events we have experienced as a family. I continued thinking about these and other events during the drive. It helped me to understand the importance of families. These events may not be crucial to our eternal salvation, but they could be. These more normal events also are the kinds of occurances which shape us. They are the kind of goals which motivate us to do better, to stretch and strive to improve ourselves, and to work to accomplish a difficult task.

When I think about marriages of our children, graduations, and other accomplishments. I believe that Heavenly Father wants us to work to grow and improve ourselves in normal, daily, seemingly non-eternal ways because it makes us better as people, as children of our Heavenly Father.

All three of these events represent a lot of work and effort to accomplish. None of them were completed in a few hours, days, or even months. It required years of work, sacrifice, tears and joy in order for these events to occur. We celebrate the accomplishment, but really, we are celebrating all the work and effort behind the accomplishment.