A Change of Venue

In the last couple of months I have developed the habit of reading my scriptures each morning in my bedroom, sitting comfortably in the corner on my favorite blue chair.  (Just barely seen in the picture below…but I am too lazy to go take another picture even though I should because Jenna washed the doors.)  I love the serenity of my bedroom, the light coming in from the french doors, the birds cautiously feeding from the circle feeder, the bamboo above the fence, and most of all the occasional hummingbird that stops by for a sip of sugar water.

What I haven’t loved about it is that if I spend any length of time at all on my scriptures, that added to my other daily chores (make bed, work on laundry, shower, etc) means that I am spending a good chunk of time away from the center of our house & my kids.  Yesterday as I was sitting comfortably after my scripture study was done another thought occurred to me.

I know what I’m doing in my bedroom.  I’m reading & studying the scriptures, writing down the thoughts that the spirit brings to my mind.  But I realized that my kids don’t really know what I’m doing, or they know it in only some abstract kind of way.

You know how you hear those stories of kids walking into their parent’s bedrooms and finding one of their parents on their knees praying?  Well…I don’t know that that has ever happened in our home.  But I would love for our kids have a similar experience seeing that I don’t just tell them to read the scriptures, but that I spend a significant (though variable) amount of time reading my own. 

I decided that in order for my kids to internalize more deeply “my mother loved to study the scriptures” they need to see that more regularly.  And I declared a change of venue.

I’m moving from the cushy corner of my bedroom to the dining room table.  Out in the middle of whatever is going on, out where I can be seen.

I’ll be able to enjoy the view of what I call the “tomato forest” just outside the dining room windows.

And I will still be able to see hummingbirds.

Perhaps best of all…Tiger won’t sit at my door begging to be let in…

 

PS—If you are thinking that you aren’t seeing a set of the LDS scriptures in that picture above, you are right.  Much of the time I do my Book of Mormon study using the fabulous & amazing “Readers Edition of the Book of Mormon” complied by Grant Hardy and available here.  It has truly changed my comprehension to be able to read the words of the Book of Mormon in paragraphs instead of in block sentences.