Faith in Family Life

Faith is an important part of the family.  In "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", faith is listed as the first principle that successful marriages and families should be built upon. Faith and religion play a major part in family life.  

Being active in a religious community gives us a whole new family, and many opportunities.  People who are actively involved in their religious communities, have been shown to have a lower use of pornography, and lower rates of domestic violence in their homes.  Women who are involved in a religious community are more likely to have children, while men who are actively involved in their religious communities are more likely to remain faithful to their spouse, and are highly involved in their children's lives.  

Religious communities can provide love, support, service, and friendship to each other.  My son had a major spine surgery this summer.  My son and I were required to spend six weeks in a hospital that was in a different state from the rest of our family.  Our families helped as much as possible, but our ward family was wonderful.  They arranged meals for our family, had our kids over for play dates, and over 20 different families traveled the three hours to the hospital to check on us during that time.  There were also many families in the ward that included us in their prayers and fasting.  This support made a huge difference in our lives.  We knew we were loved, and that those members of our ward really cared for us.

There are many ways that we can help our children to increase their faith.  In our family we try to do the basics such as family prayer, family scripture study, Family Home Evening, and regular church attendance.  We have also tried to teach our children faith by involving them in our fasts, especially when we are fasting for a particular reason.  

One thing that we have really enjoyed doing is taking our boys, that are old enough, to the temple to perform baptisms for the dead.  We have a goal as a family to visit as many different temples as we can.  Involving our children in finding names, picking the temple, and doing the temple work has been a great way to help build their testimonies of the temple, family history, and service.

Helping our children to build their testimonies, and their faith in Christ, is one of the most important things that we can do as parents.  

There is a beautiful lesson that is taught in the book Daughters in My Kingdom.  It talks about women, but it can also apply to faithful men too.

"Whenever a woman strengthens the faith of a child, she contributes to the strength of a family-now and in the future."

--Daughters in My Kingdom