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Seven years and seven days ago, our family decided that we needed to be more consistent with family scripture reading. We were pretty good at reading most nights, but were not as faithful in our family scripture study as we thought would be best for all of us. So we put the kids in charge of making sure we read every night. And they have beyond amazing.
Seven months into it (212 days to be exact), we were coming home from a vacation and decided to drive all the way home, rather than stay over someplace like we had originally planned. We made it home in the middle of the night and no one thought to read our scriptures before dropping into bed. It was only the next morning that we realized we missed a day.
So a little sad, but with new determination, we started again. That was on March 13, 2007. And 2351 days later, we still had not missed a day.
Until last night.
Tonight, as we sat down to read the Book of Mormon, I suddenly couldn't remember reading our scriptures together as a family last night. I remembered having family home evening. I remembered saying our family prayers together. But I didn't remember reading our scriptures. And I thought I must be losing my mind because it has become such a habit, I just knew we wouldn't forget.
But after 10 or 15 minutes of discussing it and trying to remember the details of last night, we've decided that we did just that. We forgot.
It was a pretty sad moment for us. It has been a little over six years and five months since we started reading after that first missed day. And in a total of seven years and seven days, we have missed two nights. I think the reality of how long that is hit me when I realized we could never achieve that long of a run again, as our entire family, because our Campbell will be leaving on his mission long before either six or seven more years pass.
Oh my mother's heart.
And yet...
I feel a happy sort of sad tonight. Because while the kids went to bed shocked and a little frustrated that we would all forget, I can't help but focus not on last night, but on the last seven years.
Now I would never claim that the majority of our scripture reading has been full of happiness and calm and life-changing moments. Of course, we have often had to ask the kids 47 times to calm down and listen. Of course, I was sometimes (and sometimes often) tired and grumpy and I just wanted the kids to go to bed and skip on the reading. And of course, there were so very many times when Jacob was gone for days on end and I knew I wasn't taking the time to explain what we were reading to everyone like he always does.
But every one of those hard and exasperating moments felt worth it, during other less frequent but powerful moments, when the Spirit was so strong it would put a lump in my throat and I could look around the room and know that each of us could feel that what we were reading was true. Or on so incredibly many occasions, Jacob would take the time to explain perfectly what we were reading or to draw a map to show the kids visually what we were studying or to ask a question that would start a discussion that filled our home with such a beautiful feeling . Or I would read a verse that I have read dozens of times on my own, but reading it out loud, with my family, it meant something totally different to me.
Daily reading of the Book of Mormon for the last 2564 days (minus two) has changed who we are as a family and who we are as individuals. And it is not because we are great and wonderful. It is because our modern day prophets and leaders have promised us incredible blessings from reading the Book of Mormon and if there is one thing that I know, it is that the promises of the Lord, through His servants, will always come to pass.
From President Ezra Taft Benson:
"There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path. The scriptures are called 'the words of life,' and nowhere is that more true than it is of the Book of Mormon. When you begin to hunger and thirst after those words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance"
From Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:
"Brothers and sisters, God always provides safety for the soul, and with the Book of Mormon, He has again done that in our time. Remember this declaration by Jesus Himself: 'Whoso treasureth up my word, shall not be deceived'—and in the last days neither your heart nor your faith will fail you. Of this I earnestly testify."
And from President Gordon B. Hinckley:
“If each of you will observe this simple program [to read or reread the Book of Mormon by the end of the year], regardless of how many times you previously may have read the Book of Mormon, there will come into your lives and into your homes an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord, a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to His commandments, and a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God.”
I love the Book of Mormon with all of my heart. I know that it literally changes us as a people and helps us to become the people we promised God we would become. And there is a part of me that is grateful for last night. Because it helped me to stop and remember how profoundly the last seven years have changed us as a family. And how kind our Heavenly Father is to ask us to do something that brings us true happiness and then blesses us for doing it.
Tonight we read our scriptures together as a family. And whether you count that as 2565 days (with two missed nights) or day one, it doesn't matter to me. What matters is the Book of Mormon is true. I have no doubt and no question that it comes from God and that it is another testament of His Son.
And because of something we forgot last night, I have had a chance to remember.
God is so very good.
I am so very blessed.