by Vickey Taylor

(This was originally presented at the 2009 FAIR Conference. It’s being reprinted here to go along with this week’s Come, Follow Me lesson.)

The Book of Mormon begins in a manner that I love. Nephi—a child who never misplaced his faith in God and in Christ—summarizes that he was well educated [because he had “goodly parents”—parents whose net worth allowed him the privilege to study], that his life & the life of his family were wrought with affliction, and that his days, nevertheless, were highly favored of the Lord.

It is interesting to think of how the account would have come out if Lehi had written it, if one of Nephi’s older brothers had written it (wouldn’t that have been interesting!) or if Sariah, Nephi’s mother, had given us the account. As a mother myself, I have a unique ‘take’ of the things that happen in my family; different in perspective, I am sure, from the account you would get from one of my children.

I feel certain that Sariah must have had a dilemma, leaving her home behind and traveling into the wilderness with her husband and children, some of whom were out of control and wreaking havoc for the rest of them. Murmuring a bit, she came to understand the Lord’s purposes. It surely must have helped her, as a mother, to deal with the children whose faith was very much misplaced. [Read more…] about The Sariah Dilemma: Finding Increased Faith When Our Children Misplace Their Own