use the force!

A little late, but nevertheless, my children have just gotten into "Star Wars."  My brother will be thrilled that it's something manly and burly with weapons, fast vehicles, and fight scenes as opposed to "Hairspray" which was on the last time he visited.  What can I say.I love musicals and so do my kids!

The thing that strikes me is that they have an equal love of episodes 1-3 as they do for 4-6.  I can hardly bare to watch the last three, as the effects are so circa 1970s and just the knowing that Princess Leia/Carrie Fisher swings a different way if you catch my drift, well. lets just say I appreciate the newer ones so much more.  Plus, I love how in Episode 3, we get the tie-in between the two generations of movies, and we learn all about Anakin's transformation to Vader etc etc.  I'm not a huge fan, but I could watch that episode over and over.

Anyway, for the past week or so, the kids have been watching one episode per night and were up to number 5 last night. For some reason I can't remember, since I haven't seen episode 5 since I was like 12, Luke was hanging upside down in a snowy wasteland and couldn't reach his light saber.  He was struggling to reach it, stretching out his hand as far as he could.  All was quiet in my living room whilst my three little jedis absorbed the moment, so concerned for young Skywalker when all of a sudden my 6 year old blurted out, "Use the force!!"

I had to chuckle at that.

Then I thought of how we were going to have our Family Home Evening later and I had to come up with a lesson right quick before Daddy came home from 37.5 straight hours of work (getting about 10 hours off before going right back for another 48 hours) when I realized I could totally use this as a lesson for this evening.  Cuz of course, the force within us is so powerful too, the force of our testimonies, the force of the gospel in our lives, the force of prayer, the force of faith. I mean what gospel principle can not be associated with using the force?!

It's important to always remember and act on having the force within us to do good things, make right decisions, say the right words, be the right example, and always act worth of His name.  And just like those young padawan warriors, we have to practice and learn how to use the force in our lives for good.  Cuz our testimonies will starve if not fed.  They will fade if we don't constantly work on them and exercise them.  The faith that might have once felt so rock-solid and secure might get a little wobbly if we get complacent.  In other words, use it or lose it.

I find myself feeling that way sometimes.  I know that I know.in my head it's all there, the knowledge, the testimony, etc.  But after years of just being happy or complacent with that testimony and not doing anything about it, getting lazy about it so to speak, not feeding it, working on it, developing it, or sharing it, well, one can just lose it.  So though I know in my head, my heart forgets sometimes. 

I once thought it was almost sacreligious to continue to ask in prayer if the Church was true.  I thought:  I've received my witness of that, gained my testimony.if I continue to ask, doesn't that mean that I doubt?  Doesn't that mean that I didn't trust my first answer?  But Danny says I have to keep asking every so often, keep praying about it, to receive that continual knowledge and testimony.  He's such a good example of that.  So much better at reading and praying than I am.  And I know that's where having faith and building testimony go hand in hand.  You can't keep one if you're not doing the other. 

So I am reminding myself to use the force a bit more in my life, to feed my testimony so it'll grow.  Then I too can become a great jedi and avoid the Dark Side.

Our Family Night turned out great-we all promised to use the force to do one specific thing better this week.  And later we had a rousing game of Blind Man's Bluff for activity and home made fudge for dessert. 

If you have any questions about Family Home Evening and why we have it, please ask me!