Today’s guest post about families comes to us from India, where author McArthur Krishna lives with her husband and three beautiful daughters. She is the co-author of the Girls Who Choose God series, Stories of Courageous Women From the Bible, and Stories of Strong Women from the Book of Mormon, which we’ve featured in the past.
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I am afraid of forever. I just don’t even like thinking about heaven, eternity, endlessness. EEEE. Frankly, I don’t even like looking at the stars as it makes my head spin. So a few years ago when the bishop called me to give a talk on eternal families I thought, “Really? Me?” I mean, I was a late 30s afraid-of-forever single person… hardly qualified to speak about the topic.
Now, you should know, my family means everything to me. I was nicknamed McArthur in college and then decided to go by it full-time because the McArthur clan have been the most important people in my life. I come from a GRAND family.
Still, the thought of giving this talk just left me speechless. Truthfully, not a common state for me.
A few weeks went by of ideas rummaging around in my head. Then I drove out of DC one night headed to the hills of West Virginia home to meet up with my family for a zydeco dance at our favorite pavilion in the woods. I was late and there was rush hour traffic and so by time I arrived, the dance was in full swing. Inside my car in the parking lot, I slithered into my twirly dress and tugged on my cowboy boots. I was eager to get to the twinkly lights and the rhythmic zing I could hear floating down the hill.
Then I stepped out of the car and the force of the scene hit me— THIS is what heaven would be for me. I knew I was going to walk up to the pavilion… and my siblings were going to catch sight of me and come a runnin’… and my parents would glow as they saw us all in a huge tangle of a love hug… and we would dance the night away together. Yes, to me, heaven is a zydeco dance with my family in the woods on a soft summer night.
So when Bethany and I decided to do a book on families, obviously zydeco dancing needed to be in there. But so did a lot more truths about families… about how they look different from each other, how they are messy, and demanding, imperfect, but beloved. We hope that in writing this book that we leave the door open for people people to do their own family creation. I am certain zydeco dancing is not everyone’s idea of an eternal family activity. Obviously that’s just fine! But, the investment a family needs, and the love and growth that it both requires and rewards is true for all of us.
I know if I were asked now to give that talk, I would use our book. I would talk about how earthly families are modeled after our heavenly families, which includes Heavenly Mother. Earthly families are a workshop of imperfect beings trying to learn to how to act with love. Not all families have two parents but those that do are to act as co-equals in this grand adventure. I would talk about how families are the most important thing— even if our family is a collection of people we put together and claim as our own. The truth is— family is divine but it is also our own creation. And for whatever form your family takes, we have the opportunity and divine charge to love well these people. We hope this books gives a little help along the way.
You can purchase the book at Amazon Prime here.
Or Deseret Book here.
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