Written by Kristen Pack
A couple of weeks ago I was working at my computer. It was relatively quiet in the house, a feature some homes enjoy but in ours it usually means one of our little blessings is either creating sharpie colored Picasso’s on the wall, “going for a swim” in the toilet bowl, or opening all of the yogurt cups and “taste testing” each one. Occasionally we’re surprised, but most of the time, well.. it’s just not the case. I winced, thinking about what form of catastrophe our youngest “curly-haired tornado 2.0” had conjured for me to have to spend the next three hours cleaning up. With it being a week before Christmas, in the middle of my busiest time of year professionally, pouring oodles of time into my church calling, creating all of the magic for Christmas to happen in our family.. it was three hours I did not have. Even as I type this, I can feel my heart rate increase. I turned slowly in my chair to see that the couch where she was sitting was abandoned, her sippee of milk turned on it’s side and her blanket, affectionately called “’Nuther one blanket” (because she has three and this is her favorite), crumpled in a little heap where she sat. I winced again and strained my ears to hear, searching for some sort of hint preparing my heart and mind for what was about to unfold. I took a breath again and slowly pushed myself away from my desk.
In the past decade that I’ve been a parent I’ve learned to be prepared for anything.. and by prepared I mean, have your camera ready to capture whatever weird/awesome/funny thing your kid is doing for the sole purpose of either posting to your social media circles so that others can commiserate or to pocket for later years if you need either proof or bribery. And so, prepare I did. As I pushed myself away from my desk I grabbed my cell phone and began stealthing through the house to find our little four-nado. As I walked into my bedroom I saw a light streaming through the master bathroom doorway and heard little rumpling sounds coming from the closet, followed by the words (which either could be interpreted as the sweetest sounds or some of the most terrifying), “She is going to love this.”
I took a deep breath, confident that I was not, in fact, going to love what was happening just around the corner. I committed to do my best, to take another deep breath, smile and regardless of whether or not she had shaved a little stubbly line down the middle of her head, communicate with both my words and the expression on my face that she was loved.
As I turned the corner, I’m not sure I can begin to detail what I saw.
Framed by the doorway was my youngest daughter. She knelt on the floor, surrounded by shreds of Christmas paper and holding her little pre-k scissors awkwardly in her hands, but in the best way she knew how. I noticed how she struggled, trying to cut just the right size of paper to fit around something. I wasn’t sure just what. She was so focused that she didn’t realize I was there and just kept whispering to herself.. “she is going to love this. I just know it.”
I snapped a couple of pictures and continued to watch for just a second more as she tried to wrap a large, blue elastic band around her little present and worked figure out how to make her tiny little fingers tie a knot. I quietly backed out of the room and went back to my desk.
After a couple of minutes I heard her calling me saying, “Mommmm? Where are you? I have a prrrresent for you!”
I responded saying, “You have a present? For me?? I’m so excited that you’d think about me.” I stood up and met her in the doorway to my bedroom where she stood, holding the little gift in her hands, her arms outstretched towards me.
“You’re going to love it mom! It’s yellow! My favorite color.”
I took the gift from her hands and recognized it as a journal of mine that she must have found tucked away in my bedroom. The wrapping paper, not quite covering the book, allowed the bright yellow edges of the book to peek out from the sides. Admittedly, I have no clue where the blue rubber band came from, but recognized her resourcefulness. It was, by all means, a rough presentation. But having observed the effort she took like I did, and the excitement and love she’d poured into this little gift, knowing it was her absolute best effort, was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
I looked at the present and then looked at her face. She beamed. She said, “I like sharing my favorite color with you.”
I looked back at the gift and squatted down eye-level because I wanted her to hear me.
“It’s perfect. I love it.”
She smiled one of her most sunshiney smiles and then threw her arms around me and gave me the tightest, biggest hug.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve thought a lot about that gift. If I were to measure the gift and the wrapping job by the standards of the world it would have been easily graded as a C-. It was far from perfect, but it was aboslutely her best effort.
In 1989, President Hinckley addressed the women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the General Women’s Conference. He said, “Please don’t nag yourself with thoughts of failure. Do not set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. Simply do what you can do, in the best way you know, and the Lord will accept of your effort 1.”
More recently, President Russell M. Nelson told a group of children in Palmyra, New York in the spring of 2020, “The Lord loves effort, and effort brings rewards. We keep practicing. We are always progressing as long as we are striving to follow the Lord 2. He doesn’t expect perfection today. We keep climbing our personal Mount Sinai. As in times past, our journey does indeed take effort, hard work, and study, but our commitment to progress brings eternal rewards 3.”
The offering that we have to give our Saviour, Jesus Christ may be far from perfect. We may not have the talent or the ability to make the needed cuts perfectly or precisely in a way that we feel we should. We may lack the proper material necessary to hold it together effectively and may have to make due with what we have. With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve. Fortunately, for us that best effort and a willing heart is all that is required.
As I’ve evaluated my life over the past year and look forward into the year to come, my heart is set on the word Improve. To daily, consistently and at times minutely… always forward and improving.