Today I picked up Jake from school earlier than normal so he could go get some blood work done. I was going over his day at school and asked him what he learned about today. Jake's class has been learning about slavery in America and with shock in his voice he likes to give me a daily report. Today they talked about Harriet Tubman and "the drinking gourd". Jacob went over it all in detail with me. He told me Harriet was a train engineer in the underground railroad and that she found her freedom from running away and following the north star. He even sang an old slavery song about following the drinking gourd which is the Little Dipper and North star. After going over everything with me he quieted down for a second and then in all seriousness asked me, "could Heavenly Father ever forgive the people who made black people into slaves?" We talked about forgiveness for a little while and I told him that I believe that Heavenly Father could forgive almost anything if the person was truly repentant and went through the repentance process. It is really not hard to find these teaching moments with Jacob he loves to learn new things. After sharing this story with Jeremy he reminded me of some of the words that he spoke at Jacob's blessing almost nine years ago.
Jeremy felt strongly to bless Jacob with empathy but just at that moment couldn't come up with the word 'empathy' he paused for a moment and used the synonym 'compassion' and then elaborated on it with something like, "...that he will have the ability to know what others are feeling and comfort them when needed."
11 comments:
What a special moment you had! They are so blessed to have a mother such as you to teach and inspire them to always look toward Heavenly Father.
That made me all teary-eyed. Not only how sweet Jake is, but that Jeremy remembered that little part of his blessing. You got two good guys there.
Jake is such a sweet little boy! I love how his heart is just so tender. What a nice teaching moment. It speaks volumes about you and Jeremy that Jake is in tune to things like that and has such compassion for other people. Nice job, mom.
What a great moment and a wonderful blessing. I really wish I had recorded my children's blessings better - I can't remember anything.
I have never met any of your children but I have been struck several times through your posts about Jake. He is an amazing boy. In fact, I was just talking to my mom this afternoon about Jake and all of his health issues and I told her the same thing. He is really special and how lucky for him that his parents nurture that so that it will only increase.
A special time with a special boy. We have all known since he was very litle, that this boy was prophet material. It's never ceases to amaze how intuitive and compassionate he is. Jacob you are a rock.
That was awesome Liza. Thanks for sharing. I've been impressed with your Jake and what a special spirit he has. You have to take a lot of the crdit for that though--you are obviously an amazing mother!
Very sweey! Don't you think we get so lucky with our oldest. I know I did. Love the new look.
How neat. That's a really sweet story. :)
I just love these sweet moments. I think its a little gift to us that we are doing something right!
You have some of the most tender, hilarious children I know. Jake reminds me so much of Carl at that age. Carl would have taught his home evening lesson (in his best Primary teacher voice),and then, when Liza gave a hilarious Riley answer, he would have started crying, "Mom--she's mocking me! Make her stop mocking me!" We seemed to struggle a lot with mockery.
Jake is such a sweet boy! I hope his cousins inherit some of his tenderness and empathy.
Post a Comment