I think that anytime you have a bunch of kids together, especially when they are as close in age as we were, they are going to fight. As kids we were no different than any other and had our share of fights and disagreements. Some days were worse than others. Mom frequently told us that we could be each others best friends or worst enemies. A lesson that we were slow in learning.
One Sunday morning was evidently pretty bad. Dad was off at early morning church meetings. We kids were fighting and arguing. We were not getting ready for church. When the time came to leave for church we were in various stages of preparedness but not one of us was ready to walk out the door. The chaos of it all pushed Mom to her limit. She announced that none of us were ready and she was going without us. Out the door to church she went, by herself, leaving five stunned children behind her. Really! We didn't miss church. We always went. We knew how important church was to our parents and to be left home instead of attending had not at that point ever entered our minds. This was serious business.
This particular Sunday we were to drive our friends, the Pascoes, to church also. Their parents were out-of-town and Mom was to pick up the 6 kids at their house also. When Mom arrived at the Pascoe's home she found a similar scene of chaos, confusion and arguing. Only the 3-year-old was dressed in church clothes and ready to go. So she took the 3-year-old and left another five kids stunned in her wake.
Back at our house, some serious discussion ensued. We knew why we had been left behind and we knew how serious our problem had to be if our mother felt that we were not fit to set foot in church. That was the day that we decided that there might be something to the message that our mother often tried to teach us. As part of our conversation we decided that we really would rather be best friends than worst enemies. To show that we were serious about our decision we spent the rest of the time we were home from church, working together, cleaning the house, and getting ourselves ready. When Mom got home from church she found a much different atmosphere than when she left. The house was clean, the children were calm, we were dressed for church and we told her that we had decided that we would strive to be friends.
At that point, Mom told us she was glad that we had decided to be friends because she was expecting another baby and she knew that Heavenly Father wanted it to come to a happy home, not a house of chaos. We may have missed church that day, but we learned an eternal lesson about family and love that we needed to know.
