Summary: In 1990, James E. Faust said that being a parent is a divine calling. He said: "In my opinion, the teaching, rearing, and training of children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance, and hard work than any other challenge we might have in life. This is especially so when moral foundations of honor and decency are eroding around us. To have successful homes, values must be taught, and there must be rules, there must be standards, and there must be absolutes. Many societies give parents very little support in teaching and honoring moral values. A number of cultures are becoming essentially valueless, and many of the younger people in those societies are becoming moral cynics" (The Greatest Challenge in the World - Good Parenting). We must be the change we want to see in the world. You can't fight hate with hate. You can't teach your children compassion if you don't show them what compassion looks like. If you want to see a difference, be the difference. Our homes are the training ground for the next generation and they pick up our language, our habits, our literacy, our skills, our traditions through the culture we create in our homes. Faust quotes Barbara Bush: “But whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your children and you must hug your children and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House but on what happens inside your house.” (Washington Post, 2 June 1990, p. 2.) Especially true as another Election Day has passed. Whether you agree with the results or not, the power is in our hands to create the success we desire if we turn to our homes, our local communities, our congregations, and to ourselves, and work together to be the change.
