Thank You For Trying Hard

Hank has one teeny tiny tooth and man, has he had to work for it. 

A few nights ago after he’d finally gone to sleep I went into the kitchen to catch up on dishes and pick up the leftover scrambled eggs that escaped the highchair tray. 

As I washed the dishes, a memory from a family trip came to mind.

We took the journey to Nauvoo, Illinois in the silver Dodge Caravan. Needless to say the words of a familiar hymn played on repeat in my mind, "Does the journey seem long?" 

The car was cramped and full of clothes, various trail-mixes, and my family. The younger two kids especially grew restless on the long stretches of road to cover. 

Sometimes the close quarters gave them a disease that made touching or looking at each other either repulsive or mandatory. Of course, at different times. 

In response, my parents yelled, warned, begged, and bribed but nothing stuck for more than a few miles. 

It was beginning to hit its peak when my mom changed the game plan. 

​With an impressive move using only an old receipt and a mostly dry Sharpie, my mom renewed our patience and stopped the fighting. 

The note passed to the back seat read as follows, 

"Thank you for trying hard. I love you both. Love Mom." 

I thought of this experience in a new light among the suds and silverware in the sink. Isn't that how our Heavenly Parents work with us?

Sometimes, often times, mortality is uncomfortable and hard. 

Temptation is relentless and imperfections sometimes look to be outnumbering our efforts. 

But when we're discouraged, a little note passed from heaven to the backseat of mortality reads, 

"Thank you for trying hard. We love you all. Love, Mom and Dad."