Spiritual Thought: "Seriously, Dude?"

"Are you new in our ward?"

"Er, no. Just...have a teething child."

I think I had that conversation five times this past Sunday. Punkito has molars coming in and she cried a good chunk of Saturday night/early Sunday morning. She finally fell asleep soundly a little after 7 am. We, her very tired parents, looked at each other and without speaking knew that 9 am church wasn't happening and we turned off the alarm.

We did manage to make it a different ward for their testimony meeting and two things made a big impression on me: 1) how many children they had bear testimonies. It was really sweet! I love hearing the simple and sweet testimony of a child. I especially liked the darling boy (maybe age 8) who helped his little brother (maybe 4) bear a testimony. So sweet.

2). One guy's testimony was both funny and eerily accurate at the same time. He talked about his little boy who is currently battling a serious addiction to chocolate. {I  feel your pain, little man!} They try and hide it from him but he has become quite adept at scaling the pantry shelves spiderman-style to find the precious bars. He said one night he went into his son's room and could see the boy's form under the blankets and hear foil wrappers crinkling. He said he chuckled to himself thinking, "seriously, dude, come on" before pulling back the blankets and seeing his son's guilty face covered in chocolate. As we all laughed, he said he wonders if our Heavenly Father ever feels like that about us. Sometimes we know better, but we do it anyway and we make a feeble attempt to hide it. Heavenly Father must just look at us and think "Seriously, come on, who do you think you're kidding?"

It was a great image and I'm pretty sure that next time I do something I know I probably shouldn't, I'll hear this guy's voice saying "Seriously, dude?" And maybe, just maybe, that'll help me put down the chocolate and walk away.