Jesus Christ is the Strength of Parents

Another powerful way the Lord supports parents is through the gift of personal revelation. God is eager to pour out His Spirit to guide parents. As you are prayerful and sensitive to the Spirit, He will warn you of hidden dangers.¹⁵ He will reveal your children’s gifts, their strengths, and their unspoken concerns.¹⁶ God will help you see your children as He sees them—beyond their outward appearance and into their hearts.¹⁷ With God’s help, you can learn to know your children in a pure and heavenly way. I invite you to accept God’s offer to guide your family by personal revelation. Seek His guidance in your prayers.¹⁸

Perhaps the most important help Jesus Christ offers to parents is the “mighty change” of heart.¹⁹ It’s a miracle every one of us needs. For a moment, imagine this situation: You’re at church, listening to a talk about families. The speaker describes a perfect home and an even more perfect family. Husband and wife never quarrel. Children stop reading their scriptures only when it’s time to do homework. And the music of “Love One Another”²⁰ is playing in the background. Before the speaker gets to the part about everyone cheerfully joining to clean the bathroom, you’re already thinking, “My family is hopeless.”

Dear brothers and sisters, relax! Everyone in the congregation is thinking the same thing! The fact is, all parents worry about not being good enough. Fortunately, there is a divine source of help for parents: It is Jesus Christ. He is the source of our mighty change of heart. As you open your heart to the Savior and His teachings, He will show you your weakness. If you trust Jesus Christ with a humble heart, He will make weak things become strong.²¹ He is the God of miracles. Does that mean you and your family will be picture-perfect? No. But you will get better. Through the Savior’s grace, little by little, you’ll develop more of the attributes parents need: love for God and His children, patience, selflessness, faith in Christ, and courage to make righteous choices.

Our effort to build faith in Jesus Christ is home centered, focused on the individual. And it is Church supported. Besides providing the sacred scriptures and the words of prophets, the Savior’s Church offers many resources to help parents and children make righteous choices:

• For the Strength of Youth: A Guide for Making Choices does not give you a list of dos or don’ts. It teaches eternal truths to help make choices centered on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Read it with your children. Let them talk about it. Help them to have these eternal and divine truths guide their choices.²²

• FSY conferences are another wonderful resource. I hope every youth will attend. I invite young single adults to join these conferences as mentors and counselors. I invite parents to build on the spiritual momentum their youth bring home from FSY conferences.

• Children and youth in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have teachers, advisers, and mentors. Often you enter a young person’s life at a crucial moment to build and support faith and testimony. Some of you are single adults. Some never had children of your own. Your joyful service to God’s children is sacred in God’s eyes.²³

Jesus Christ is the strength of families. Jesus Christ is the strength of youth. Jesus Christ is the strength of parents.

Of this I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

For Elder Uchtdorf’s complete talk click. . . . ‘Jesus Christ is the Strength of Parents’