Excerpt from Famous Family Nights

I've been asked by many to post an excerpt from Famous Family Nights online. Choosing one story from ninety-one is really difficult. I love them all. In the end, I decided to go with Jeffrey Denning's entry, since the holidays are a time when servicemen everywhere deserve extra special attention and gratitude.

Jeffrey J. Denning, CPS, CMAS, is a counterterrorism specialist and former Federal Air Marshal. He writes an Aviation Security blog for The Washington Times and has been featured on CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, Fox News, CBS, documentary films, and radio stations around the world. 

Iraq Home Evening

My mom had six children and, unfortunately, a pretty rough divorce. Even to this day, I distinctly remember coming home one Sunday afternoon from Primary, overwhelmed by powerful feelings of joy, comfort and peace. This incredible feeling of the spirit coursed through my heart and mind because of a new song we learned that day in Primary: "Families Can Be Together Forever." But my parents are divorced and I have a broken family that won't be together, I remember thinking. Yet, I had hope for the future—my future family.

Despite the challenges of raising six children mostly on her own, my mom had the drive to keep the Lord's commandments and the courage to hold Family Home Evening even at times when she was alone. It was a struggle, no doubt. As rowdy children, we certainly didn't make it easy for her. In fact, we missed holding regular Family Home Evening sometimes for several weeks in a row for one reason or another, but our mother was determined. I'm certain that she wanted to completely give up at times, but she didn't. I recall her energy to recharge and restart again and again. It was her determination to be obedient that served as a more powerful example and lesson to me and my siblings than the less-than-perfect Family Home Evening gatherings.

Many years later, after starting a family of my own, I was able to incorporate those same powerful lessons that impacted my childhood. My wife and I immediately began the tradition of singing "Families Can Be Together Forever" with our children from the start.

While working shift work as a police officer, living in Jerusalem and working as a U.S. government contractor, traveling out of town as an undercover Federal Air Marshal, or serving in Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserves, my wife has been the glue that has held our family together. Whenever I was home, we held regular Family Home Evening. And, fortunately, although my wife was all alone and faced with many pressures and burdens of her own, she was committed to holding Family Home Evening by herself whenever I was gone. While in Iraq, she sent me a video recording of several things from home—among them was a video-taped Family Home Evening, with our rowdy, screaming children who didn't seem to be paying attention at all.

During one of the most stressful, trying and difficult times of my life, towards the end of my year-long military deployment to Iraq, I was able to call home one day. My sweet companion was anxious to share some exciting news with me and she put our youngest daughter at the time (then just two-years-old) on the phone. Before I left for Iraq, our baby girl couldn't even say "Daddy," but on the phone she sang to me the entire song of "Families Can Be Together Forever." My heart melted. Welling tears of gratitude for my wife and love for each of our children accompanied my effervescent smile.

Today, it fills my heart with great joy and gratitude to gather as a family every Monday night. I'm forever grateful that my wife taught our children when I couldn't be around to help her. Most importantly, I've learned that while no family is perfect and no Family Home Evening goes quite the way we'd like them to, if we try our hardest to do what's right, the Lord will make up where we lack.

© Anne Bradshaw