Scripture Lessons

I got home from work tonight and found three kids who were not getting along at all.  I tried to settle the situation but things continued to be foul.  That is a frustrating thing.  Then I got the attempts at tattle telling and I said sorry, don't want to hear it.  I let them know this was not acceptable and needed to stop.  It was a busy evening, I didn't bring home food and didn't want to cook so I took them through the drive through at McD's with gift cards they got from Grandpapa for Christmas.  Things settled for a couple of hours and then we ran into the contention wall again.  I was not happy about it and made it clear that we were not going to do that.  For scriptures tonight we found ourselves in 1 Nephi 16 and the story of Nephi breaking his bow.  How appropriate.  We read about all the complaining and the arguing and then we read about how Nephi handled the situation.  We discussed what he could have done.  He could have very easily gotten into it with the other members of his family and would have had some great arguments to be sure.  He did not.  Instead of arguing he found a solution to the problem and made a bow and arrow.  We then went on to read about the family looking upon the Liahona and finding that it did not work when they did not exercise faith.  We then discussed how contention drives the spirit away and we lose that companionship in our home.  We lose direction that comes from the Lord just as the spindles on the Liahona would not work for Lehi and his family.  I am grateful for scripture lessons and for inspiration that comes when I am feeling a little overwhelmed and perhaps not really sure how to help my family.  This scripture lesson seemed to help.  Everyone participated and seemed to get the picture.  We will need to continue this discussion to be sure.  I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who does not leave us alone.  My desire was to help my children get beyond the contention of the day.  I think we accomplished that and hopefully we learned some lessons that can help us each day and strengthen our family.