The greatest joys and the greatest sorrows we experience are in family relationships. The joys come from putting the welfare of others above our own. That is what love is. And the sorrow comes primarily from selfishness, which is the absence of love. The ideal God holds for us is to form families in the way most likely to lead to happiness and away from sorrow.
Interpretation
Family relationships bring both joy and sorrow, and true love involves selflessness.
This quote highlights the significant emotional spectrum that family relationships entail, emphasizing that our greatest joys arise from selflessly caring for others. Conversely, the greatest sorrows stem from selfishness, which detracts from love and can cause harm within family dynamics. The quote suggests that the ideal way to cultivate happiness in families is through love and selflessness, aligning with a higher moral standard set by God.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a family gathering to emphasize the importance of love and support.
My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember God’s kindness. It will build our testimonies. You may not keep a journal. You may not share whatever record you keep with those you love and serve. But you and they will be blessed as you remember what the Lord has done.
Increased spiritual strength is a gift from God which He can give when we push in His service to our limits. Through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, our natures can be changed. Then our power to carry burdens can be increased more than enough to compensate for the increased service we will be asked to give.
Whether or not you choose to keep your covenant to always remember Him, He always remembers you.
What all of us long for in our hearts, at Christmastime and always, is to feel bound together in love with the sweet assurance that it can last forever.
We cannot control what others choose to do, and so we cannot force our children to heaven, but we can determine what we will do. And we can decide that we will do all we can to bring down the powers of heaven into that family we want so much to have forever.
It is serving God and others persistently with full heart and soul that turns testimony of truth into unbreakable spiritual strength.
I am most anxious to give my own children enough love and understanding so that they won't grow up with an aching void in them--like you and I and Harold and Martha. That can never be filled, and one goes around all one's life trying, trying to make up for what one didn't get that was one's birthright, asking the wrong people for it.
I'm a hard worker and love my work. I have felt pulled toward work. And it's a pull I have ferociously had to counter to make room for my family.
I cut grass, I did yard work, I did roofing, I cleaned basements to take care of my family.
There's so much negative imagery of black fatherhood. I've got tons of friends that are doing the right thing by their kids, and doing the right thing as a father - and how come that's not as newsworthy?
Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them.
Mothers are a biological necessity; fathers are a social invention
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