Growing up my family had a storage room in the basement. It
was large, dark, cold, and creepy. When I was younger and my mother would send
me down to get something I would run as fast as I could to retrieve the item
and then back up again with a little shiver at the top step. As I got older I
developed some organization skills and was sent down to the creepy storage room
to organize. There were random things we rarely used, holiday decorations, old
keepsakes, and jars and jars of food. My mother canned. She canned pickles,
beets, salsa, jams, syrups, peaches, pears, apple pie filling, her secret chili
sauce, and I’m sure other things. I started to take notice of all the hard work
and the beauty of each jar. When my older sisters would come home on the weekends
from college I was protective of the canned goods. They would sneak down to
take a coveted jar of raspberries or peach syrup. We all knew how wonderful
each jar was and how much work went into each batch prepared. We all had spent
our summers together with my parents, dad outside picking and pruning, and mom
inside cutting and canning. My parents were teaching us in more than one way.
We were being taught to be self-reliant and to work together in unity.
It seems as time goes on the power of unity is being
forgotten. Kids stay home more often and they seek activities that include just
them. Many in the world today have taken the importance of being self-reliant
and turned it into just self. Focusing just on the individual can be viewed as
brave, and relying on others as weak. There are plenty of times when we need to
complete a task, assignment, or goal all on our own, but teaching the power of
unity can help strengthen relationships. I want to teach my children the good
that can come from learning to work together. Sorting out problems and working
on hard things, even if just to prepare you for the next hard thing. When we are in a family we are unified. When
we are in a marriage we are unified. When we work on those relationships we can
build better communities and cities.
I know as a wife and a mother I often show I am run down and
tired. I worry that I am not showing how much I value the unity I have in my
marriage and in my family. I hope as I continue as a mother I will be able to
strengthen the desire in my children to have families of their own. I hope they strive to have families
that will work together and fight for their most important relationships. We are facing challenging
times and the family is being transformed and lessened in its value. I feel we must express deeply to our children
and loved ones that the family is what helps create unity. My families canning jars represent being
self-reliant, but they also represent unity.
(my wonderful parents, aren't they fun!)
“Many of the social restraints which
in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving
and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and
actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of
the gathering evil around us.”
-
Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, Nov. 1980, 4.
