Teach Them Their Identity and Purpose
It was a teething baby kind of an afternoon.
You know the kind — -the afternoon that grumpy, drooling baby is your favorite accessory because he is wrapped around your hips like a loud, blingy belt. Therefore, all household chores are done with the one free hand, arm, elbow and half a torso. Mothers can be superhuman.
My teenaged son’s basketball game was starting as I was throwing together a meal and trying to get out the door. Just then, Mr. Favorite Accessory was momentarily distracted by a high school-aged daughter who whisked him away. Now was my chance to slip out the door unnoticed.
“Mommy, I go with you?”
Blast. Not unnoticed.
“Sure!” I told my 2-year-old. “Get your socks and shoes. Let’s go!”
Minutes later, I was hurriedly pushing her little body into a carseat, clicking seatbelts faster than she could settle into position.
“I take my coat off!” she yelped.
“What? It’s not a long drive. Can we please leave your coat on?”
“No! I take my coat off!”
Exasperated and very, very late, I quickly unsnapped all the recently snapped harnesses and brusquely pulled her out of her seat, tugging on coat sleeves before her feet hit the floor.
Coat tossed to the side, I began lifting her back into the carseat when her whole body went stiff.
“Stop!” Something in her commanding voice halted my busy movements.
Carefully and indignantly she climbed out of her throne, looked into my eyes and proclaimed, “I. Am a PRINCESS.” Pausing to let that fact sink in, the toddler continued, “I no go to the ballgame.”
Apparently my rough handling of Her Majesty had prompted an abort mission response.
A little agape, I watched her pick up her coat, exit the minivan, and stalk through the garage. Up two steps she climbed before turning and proclaiming with a death stare, “You’re super mean.” With that, she opened the door to her domain and left the local peasant to her travel.
This child has no issues with her identity.
Elder Brian K. Taylor stated, “When asked, ‘How can we help those struggling with [a personal challenge]?” an Apostle of the Lord instructed, ‘Teach them their identity and their purpose.”1
Think about that.
How would we and our children face challenges differently if we understood, “soul deep”, who we really are and why we are on this earth?
Elder Taylor also taught, “Moses learned of his divine heritage talking with the Lord face-to-face. Following that experience, ‘Satan came tempting’ with subtle yet vicious intent to distort Moses’s identity, ‘saying: Moses, son of man, worship me. And…Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God.’”2
Moses and my 2-year-old had something figured out. “”The more you understand your true identity and purpose, soul deep, the more it will influence everything in your life.”3
This makes it easier to walk away from compromising people or situations, to resist persistent temptation, and to shoulder whatever experience may come your way because you are “a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents” with a “divine nature and destiny.”4
