A friend of mine told the story of her younger daughter receiving a small Book of Mormon from her Sunbeam teacher. She loved that book and every day, every single day, she would sit and leaf through the pages while singing "I Am a Child of God" to herself. This infuriated the older sister somehow. "Mom! Make her stop!" That isn't a songbook. It doesn't say that in that book. Make her stop!!" And then, my wise friend realized and articulated for her sweet older daughter that the Book of Mormon, that all the scriptures, say exactly that. The scriptures are where we learn that we are God's. We are children of God. They are written with this single purpose in mind--God so loved YOU that He created worlds without number, sent prophets to guide and protect YOU, sent His Son to save YOU and usher YOU home to Him again. Somehow that sweet pre-reading little girl knew, without being able to read the Book of Mormon, that it really was the most elemental text of "I am a Child of God."
I am a Child of God has always been a song of power, a touchstone of divinity, for me. On my mission, we would sing it at open houses, with investigators, with struggling members. One of the elders asked why I always wanted to sing that song and I told him that the song teaches the most basic and special truth of the Restoration. Everything else comes out of the truth that we belong to God and that He loves us and wants us Home again. The world wants us to forget, to genericize us, to demoralize us.
I spent several hours holding my sobbing baby girl yesterday. A confluence of bad friend interactions over the weekend had left her feeling vulnerable and she didn't have the strength to go to the dance class where she always felt vulnerable. I battle with wanting to 'mother bear' my way into those bad friend interactions--fixing them, righting the wrongs. But that won't help anything and it won't embolden my baby girl either. She has always been shy in peopley situations. If she has one friend, she can do a lot and it took a great deal of desire on her part to even sign up for a dance class with no one she knew. She was so crushed by the bad friend moments of the weekend. She felt alone and there was nothing I could do but hold her. I didn't want it to define her. We talked about how it didn't matter to me whether she went to the dance class, ever. But I knew, and told her, that if she was just afraid, that skipping one class wouldn't make it easier next time, it would make it scarier. And she really loves to dance. Ultimately we went to dance, armed with some chocolate licorice and some fun songs to sing on the way to the class.
Some years ago, the very timid friend of CE had as a motto "I can do hard things." One of the reasons why my children take piano lessons is that it's important to me that they do at least one hard thing every day. I do my children no service if I clear the way of hard things for them; if I fight their battles and create safe places for them. I want them safe, more than anything. But temporary safety that comes in the absence of bad friend moments or in the absence of daunting classes isn't really safety at all. Safety comes in being a safe person, not finding one. Safety comes in feeling to their bones that they are divine, that they have power from on High given them from a loving Heavenly Father who knows their name. This safety doesn't clear all the anxious moments of our timid hearts, but it does provide a touchstone, an anchor from which to weather them.
I am a child of God. And He has sent me here. I am a child of God. And so my needs are great. I am a child of God. Rich blessings are in store. I am a child of God. His promises are sure. Celestial glory shall be mine if I can but endure.
Lead me. Guide me. Walk beside me. Help me find the way. Teach me all that I must do, to live with Him someday.
