Part Twenty-Nine--Family Devotional

FAMILY DEVOTIONAL

Family devotional was the foundation of and the most important element of our children’s education. I mentioned a little bit about family devotionals in another post here and the rest is below. 

Chase, Hal, Giselle, Autumn Heather, Hal IV during family devotional


PERSONAL DEVOTIONALS

When I was sixteen years old a returned missionary who was my Sunday school teacher changed my life. He was fun and zealous and handsome, and I hung on his every word. He taught my class how to have our own personal devotionals. His formula was first sing a hymn, second pray, third study the scriptures. He said that singing a hymn helps invite the Spirit so that we can be ready to pray, and after praying we’re ready to study the scriptures. I adopted his idea and I taught our children this too. [Side note: I recently found this Sunday School teacher on Facebook. I have never seen or contacted him before now, but I remembered that he was the son of Floyd Weston, the man who wrote the WWII story called Seventeen Points of the True Church]

Then sometime in the early 1990’s I read an article in the Ensign about a woman who sang the hymns in her personal devotionals too. On January 1^st she sang hymn number one; on the 2^nd, hymn number two, and so on. I adopted this for my devotionals and sometime later we used this pattern for our family devotionals: prayer, hymn, scriptures.

BEGINNINGS

When Amber and Jasmyn were little, and Hal IV was a baby we began reading a children’s version of The Book of Mormon. This lasted only a little while because Hal felt that we should read directly from the scriptures. I was skeptical. How could my little children listen to, much less read and understand the archaic language of the scriptures? He assured me that they would be okay even if we only read a few verses a day. 

We read a column a day. It took us awhile to develop the habit of having family devotional every day, and we missed days here and there. Here’s what I wrote about it a few years later:

Our children struggled to read the unfamiliar words but they learned remarkably soon how to pronounce The Book of Mormon names and places. When Hal IV was two years old he still wanted to take turns reading so we would have him repeat a verse after us. Soon he wanted to ‘rea’ after everyone else had had a turn reading because he wanted to continue the story in his own way. One time while reading the story of Gideon trying to kill King Noah he changed the story by ‘reading’ that Gideon and King Noah we nice to each other. 

Sometime when it was Hal IV’s turn he would just say, “giggle bells, giggle bells…”

It took us four years to read The Book of Mormon.

Another journal entry:

March 21, 1992

Our family completed reading The Book of Mormon on Thursday, March 19^th. We gave our children a certificate of completion. After Hal congratulated the children on their accomplishment we had a candlelight dinner and cake and ice cream. I videotaped the presentation.

LANGUAGE

Most of our children learned to read during family devotional. They started off by repeating a verse when they were little, a few words at a time. Everyone got phonics lessons while Mom or Dad or an older sibling helped a younger sibling sound out a word during his or her verse. Even though some of the kids didn’t read as quickly as some of their peers, by the time they were eight to ten years old they were reading the Bible with ease. The KJV used to be rated at an eighth grade reading level. It is now rate at a twelfth grade reading level.

Amber, Chase and Hal

Although I didn’t realize this at the time, reading the scriptures aloud was invaluable to our children as it not only increased their vocabulary, but their pronunciation as well. Where else would they learn the meaning and pronunciation of the word, ‘epistle’ at such an early age?  They were so accustomed to the language of the King James Version that reading Shakespeare was not daunting to them. I still remember the first time we took a young man with us to the Redlands Shakespeare Festival. He couldn’t follow the dialogue because it was so foreign to him. I believe that part of the reason Shakespeare was not daunting to the children is because of their familiarity with the KJV.

 Hal IV and Giselle

 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

I was inspired by Deena Ortiz to read The Book of Mormon in another language. Her family read it in Spanish and I wanted to read it as a family in French. All the kids had their own copies of Le Livre de Mormon for many years, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I asked Hal if we could read it for family devotional. Autumn Heather and Giselle were the only children living at home at the time.  Just before the start of our World War II school year we began.

I felt that Autumn Heather and Giselle would be like the missionary in The Other Side of Heaven who learned to speak Tongan by reading the Bible. The girls knew some French, but we hadn’t worked on it consistently for awhile. At least they had good accents though since they had heard French from infancy. Hal knew Spanish and some French and Latin already, so it was pretty easy for him overall, and his pronunciation improved dramatically over the years it took to read in French.

We began by reading one verse each and translating it as best we could. I helped everyone along. The girls started almost from scratch but by the time they had been reading a few months they were able to translate each verse about 80 to 90 percent. After that they could sometimes translate a verse without any help from me. I remember how stunned I was by their rapid improvement. I had heard that President Kimball used to say that if you wanted to learn a language you should read The Book of Mormon in that language. I don’t have that reference, but it worked for my girls.  (Hal IV is reading it in Russian right now).

MUSIC

When my parents would visit our home my mother used to comment on the beautiful singing at family devotional. We like to belt out the hymns when we sing. I would have never thought to write about it but I suppose it is just one more thing that family devotional gave to my children. Although we have all sung in church choirs, my children first learned to sing parts by sitting next to me in church and family devotional. We like to sing all four parts—if the person next to you is singing tenor, then you sing bass or alto or soprano. We also sing all the verses of a hymn, not just the verses printed within the music staff.

Jasmyn plays hymns during devotional, circa 2002-2004

When we first began singing hymns I accompanied us on the piano. But it wasn’t too long before Amber and the rest of our children played the hymns for us. As a youth I had honed my sight-reading piano skills while playing the piano in church and for school vocal groups. I told my children that the best way to learn to sight read piano music was to do the same. Having to play an unfamiliar hymn, but not be able to go back and fix mistakes, was excellent sight reading practice for them.

OUR DEVOTIONAL ROOM

When we first moved to our home of 22 years we had no couches in our living room for a long time, which my children loved, as it was the perfect place to stage plays and “wrestle with Daddy.” It was also a good room for reading the scriptures together. Later we placed three couches on three sides of the room, with a piano on the last side forming a square in our living room. It became the perfect family devotional and discussion setting.

 Chase and Hal IV after family devotional on a Sunday

DISCUSSIONS

Amber once told me that one of her favorite family traditions was family devotional and the discussions we had during and after devotional. We read the scriptures together, but we also discussed them. We talked about current events and principals of freedom. Hal also shared stories about the children’s ancestors.

• Doctrinal

Hal and I would comment about a verse or ask the children a doctrinal question, or the children would ask us questions. Usually Hal and I had the answers, but sometimes the older children would answer the questions. Nowadays when Hal or I ask Giselle a certain doctrinal question she usually knows the answer because she has heard it for years!

 Hal and Hal IV

• Political

Hal was the watch dog for our family as far as political and world events. Oftentimes after devotional he shared significant news to keep everyone up-to-date on important events. We also compared doctrines in the scriptures to current questions about freedom. I recently found a journal entry I wrote about one item we discussed:

Friday, July 3, 2009  Today during and after family devotional we were talking about pre-emptive strikes in war, and how The Book of Mormon says that it is not right to go up against your enemies before they attack you. Hal III said that he thought Bush was wrong to do pre-emptive strikes.

• Familial

We discussed most of our family business in Family Home Evening, but sometimes things were resolved at devotional. Hal also shared many family stories. Sometimes his stories were personal, sometimes a few generations back such as how Abbie Roberts burned her hands, but sometimes his stories were actual history lessons about royal ancestors.

One day after devotional he shared the fantastic story of King Stephen of England’s plan to catapult a six-year-old boy over Newbury Castle wall in 1152. This boy was the son of Stephen’s enemy. Stephen led the boy to the catapult, but was unable to wreak revenge by ending this boy’s life. The boy later became the regent to Henry III and one of the most powerful men in Europe, William Marshall. Interestingly, just after Hal shared this, I read the same story to the kids in a children’s book from the library, (In the Time of Knights, by Shelley Tanaka). What a great connection for them to say that the person in the book was their many times over great grandfather.

Giselle sits in her seat while Hal IV opens a hymnbook.

It looks like Hal is getting ready to sit on the floor.

As Hal shared family stories with our kids we didn’t realize this practice of telling family stories over and over is now scientifically proven to help children be happier and better adjusted in life and

that children who have the most self-confidence have ...a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.  (The Stories That Bind Us)

(I posted about the power of telling family stories and the New York Times article this last year here.) 

LITERATURE

Sometimes I felt that we should read some books together as an entire family. 

We first read Standing for Somthing

The last thing we read was Cultural Literacy which was recommended to me by

Shannon Brooks when he was vice president of George Wythe College. He showed me this book and told me that the school wanted all incoming freshmen to know this information.

Autumn Heather and Giselle were the only ones home by the time we read this.

We had a fun time with this book.

Cultural Literacy and scriptures sit on the coffee table while Hal opens birthday presents

SILLY STUFF

Hal had a little box full of Father’s Day and birthday coupons—usually for backrubs--which the kids made for him over the years. Sometimes during or after devotional he brought out one of those coupons and handed it to a child. This began the tradition of giving backrubs during devotional. Hal received his backrubs. Later the kids began to flop onto the floor and ask me to put their backs ‘in’. They would keep their scriptures near them so they could read when their turn came, but meanwhile I worked on their backs, necks and hips.

I don’t know who started the silly chant that became a little tradition when we knelt down for prayer.  It went like this:

“First, second, third, bald-headed nerd.”

When the first person knelt down for prayer someone would say,

“First!”

The next,

“Second!”

And as each person knelt down, (up to six people), we would hear,

“Third!”

“You’re Bald!”

“Headed!”

“You’re Nerd!!!!!!”

The idea was not to be the fourth or sixth person kneeling down or else you would end up ‘bald’ or ‘nerd.’ This silly ditty greatly facilitated inviting the Spirit just before we prayed, so much so that it was banned for a few years. It came out periodically after that but not to distraction. Giselle has even mentioned it a few times while she has been the only kid left at home. Even though we did ban this, it made for fun family memories.

During one of our recent trips to Utah I sat with Ben and Amber's family while they had family devotional. They were reading Numbers chapter 18, and Tyler, age five, spoke up and asked if he could read verse eight:

8 ¶And the Lord spake unto Aaron...

Tyler began, " 'P' And the Lord spake unto Aaron…"

When I realized that he had read the paragraph sign or pilcrow as a “P” I burst out laughing and could not control my laughter throughout this verse. Tyler was also giggling while trying to read.  I felt badly that I had laughed at his little faux pas, but I couldn't help myself.  When we got finished reading I told Amber that I was so sorry for laughing while Tyler was trying to read. She answered, "I laughed the first twenty times too."  Tyler read this verse purposely to make me laugh and it worked. 

Amber and I then talked about the times when our family first read the book of Psalms together. From what I recollect one of the children asked Hal the significance of the word "selah" at the end of some of the psalms. He told how the psalms were songs that were sung with accompanying instruments. Thereafter, when someone read "selah" Hal IV would say, "ba-dump bump", like a drum accompanying the psalm. After going through a few verses of selah and “ba-dump bump” it became the tradition to say this every time.

Yes, it was silly. 

It was also memorable and something that our family did together.

We just had devotional because some scriptures are sitting on the couch and the floor. 

TIME

We almost always had devotional in the morning, though when we were on vacation we have read scriptures together at midnight. 

I recently found this schedule from one of our school years:

5:55 Devotional 

6:15 Seminary

8:00 School

We found that if we didn't have devotional first thing in the morning before Hal went to work, it didn't happen consistently. Sometimes that meant waking up little children very early. When Giselle was five years old we had to carry her out to sleep on the couch when the only time for family devotional was at about 5:15 A.M. 

AFFECTION

I’ve always said that the two most important things I gave to my children were my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and an example of what a good marriage looks like. I suppose that another bonus of family devotional was our solidarity as a couple. The kids were never allowed to kneel between us during family prayer or sit between us as we read scriptures. Hal had his place on the couch and mine was right next to him. When we were first married Uncle Jeff and Aunt Diane told us that they always sat together in church and the kids were never allowed to sit between them. We followed that example both in church and at home.

Chase and Autumn Heather (Hal in the mirror) circa 2008

When Hal and I have couple prayer we hold hands and kiss afterward, so it was natural that we keep up this tradition when we began having family prayer with the children too. We all kneel in a circle, hold hands, and after prayer we all give each other hugs and kisses. When guests are in our home they are always invited to join us for devotional in the morning and family prayer at night. They get hugs and kisses too if they want them!

LEGACY

Through the years we read all the scriptures through with each child at least once. This has been a blessing to them in many ways. I'm thankful that we could do this together as a family because Hal and I didn't read all the scriptures completely until we were adults. For the most part our family read the scriptures consecutively, except during special times when we stopped reading in our usual place to do things like read the last week of Christ's life the week leading up to Easter.   

The Bradley Family Devotional wouldn’t have happened, at least not consistently—as in almost every single day since 1990—if it weren’t for Hal. I always thought of myself as spiritual--I want to do what’s right by myself and my family, but I know that if Hal didn’t call us all together every day for family devotional it wouldn’t have happened every day. I know this is true because when Hal is out of town or when we are traveling without him, I am the one who is less consistent with family devotional.  

Of course Hal was right about little children being able to read the pure word of God. We didn't need any watered down versions to give them a foundation of faith and learning.