I've been debating all day about posting this because it may seem silly to some of you. But, it wasn't to our small seven year old.
A couple of weeks ago we had one of those moments that any parent hopes to have with a child. As a Mom I try to teach and instill in our kids to have faith in the Lord and a testimony of prayer. I want them to learn this while they are small so our kids will know they can trust in the Lord in tough times. Trust in Him enough to know they can pray for help having faith that their heart felt prayers will always be answered. It's hard to know if they are really getting it...
Caterpillars
Conrad had come home from a friends house one day with a caterpillar. He really wanted to keep it and nurture it until it became a butterfly or whatever it is that the caterpillar was going to be. He had taken great care of it changing the leaves daily and watching out for it. About three days in he went to change the leaves and the caterpillar fell out of the bottle. Con was so sad to find that the caterpillar was lost. But, he looked down and saw it. Very excitedly he reached down to pick it up and found that he had stepped on it and now it was dead.
Conrad just started crying and wasn't getting over it. He was so sad. So, I asked if he wanted to go catch another caterpillar. (I had never seen one this summer and wasn't sure if we had any around us.) He wanted to look. So, we went outside and looked. We looked some more and couldn't find one. I told him Heavenly Father knows where his caterpillars are and said we could pray to find one. He wanted to say a prayer so we said a little prayer. I told him he had to know Heavenly Father would help and it would be in his time. We gave up looking after awhile.
Then a couple of days later we went camping. We went for a RZR ride with some friends while we were there. We stopped at a few places and then decided to stop for lunch. In this little spot there were caterpillars everywhere! They were much cooler caterpillars than the one he had. Conrad had fun looking at all of them and then we rode on. He didn't care to catch one. He just thought they were cool to look at.
The next day I realized that his prayer had been answered. I then thought that I should talk to Conrad about the caterpillars we saw. I talked to him about how the last place we stopped for lunch was the only place we had seen the caterpillars, about how awesome they looked, and how many there were (way too many to count). I asked if he thought Heavenly Father had answered his prayer. He said yes.
I wasn't sure if he really got it. I then had the thought, "I should have him tell Bo about it". We had just finished Family Home Evening and I said, "Hey Conrad you should tell Dad about Heavenly Father answering your prayers." He was like, OK. He started telling him about it and by the end he was all teary eyed.
It was so sweet to see that he did know that Heavenly Father had answered his prayer. This was such a tender mercy of the Lord for him and for me. I am grateful for the prompting to talk to him and have him explain what he learned. The Holy Ghost was able to teach him something I never could have. It may seem like a small thing to some. But, I know he will not forget anytime soon that the Lord knows him and loves him enough to answered his prayer to find a caterpillar and not just one but many. It was a learning experience for me to listen for promptings more often and I don't want to forget...And now that I have blogged about it I won't.
