Children are an heritage of the Lord

Along with attending baby blessings for two new nephews in the last month, this weekend I got to go to a birthday party for one of my nieces and see all of my nieces and nephews together. Of course, they are all cute, and it has been a great experience watching them grow and develop their own personalities.  It is also neat watching their parents grow and develop as they raise their children.

Elder Anderson gave a wonderful talk on children at the last general conference.  And this afternoon I was listening to one of the sessions from last April's conference, where Elder Lynn G. Robbins gave some comments about children and parenting.  In particular, he talked about the patience that parents develop.  Watching my siblings and their spouses with my nieces and nephews I am continually amazed at their ability to be patient with their children as they deal with the same issues and the same behaviours over and over and over again.  Are they perfectly patient?  Probably not, but their kids are still young, they've got time to learn.

I'm grateful for their willingness to let me play with and babysit their kids so that I can experience the joy of influencing a child for good (which is different from messing with their minds, although I may have occasionally tried that as well).  I'm also grateful for the opportunities that gives me to develop patience.  Because although I am working on having patience with God's timing, I think that having patience with little kids requires a whole different level of patience.

I am perhaps most grateful that my nieces and nephews love me enough to give me hugs and kisses without prompting from their parents.  Children (which we all were once, and in an eternal sense still are) truly are a heritage and a blessing from God, regardless of who gave birth to them.