Locking Our Hearts To Jesus
/As we prepare for Christmas this week may we remember the real reason we celebrate. Jesus is the LIGHT of the world. This is something that will never change, and is true not only in December, but every day of the year.
Ron and I both teach Primary in our church. These are the kids aged 18 months to 11 years of age. Ron teaches a different age group of kids along with another young man, and I teach the oldest group of kids with another woman. We LOVE teaching Primary. Our church meetings are for two hours each week. The first hour is Sacrament Meeting where we all meet together, kids and all, where we generally sit together as families. The second hour we split up into age groups. The kids go to Primary, the youth go to young men or young women or Sunday School depending on the week. And the adults go to Relief Society for the women, Elders Quorum for the men (every other week), and on the other weeks the adults meet together for Sunday School. Our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a lay ministry. This means that no one gets paid to do any specific job or calling. Most members receive a calling assignment from the Bishop of the ward or congregation, to serve as teachers in many different capacities. Some callings require a lot of time and effort, but in so doing we are not only serving others, we are serving the Lord.
For the end of the year farewell to our classes as well as a family Christmas activity, Ron and I dropped off packets to each of our kids’ families this past week.
In the packet, there was a heart made from strips of metal, and a heart shaped lock with key for each family member. We also included a picture of Jesus with these instructions for the activity.
“Heavenly Father blessed us with Eternal families so that we can grow up to learn how to be kind, helpful, and loving to each other and someday grow and teach our own families how to do these things. By saying the following paragraph, we make a covenant or promise with Heavenly Father, Jesus, and our families.
‘I PROMISE to keep my Eternal family close and love them each and every day. Everything we do in life brings us back to Him.’
Your family has received a metal heart with a heart lock and key for each family member. The big heart represents the Savior. Each one of the locks represents us individually. When we place our locks on the big heart, it represents that we are Eternally linked to our Savior and our family. We each hold the key to keep us safely locked to the Savior and our family. Once we lock ourselves to the Savior, it is important to never break that bond. Have each family member write their name on the back of their own lock. Then with their own key, have each person open their lock, place the key on the loop of the lock, then place the lock on the heart. With the key permanently locked in place with the lock, we hope it will be a reminder that we are Eternally locked to Jesus and our families, never to be separated.”
If you are interested in doing this activity with your own family, here are the links to the metal hearts, heart locks and picture frames. The metal hearts come in three different sizes. I used the small sized ones for this activity. If you have a large family, you might want to consider the medium size. Or if you want to do this with your extended family, you could use the large size. This would be a great gift for grandparents as well! It’s surprising how many locks will actually fit on one small heart. They sit nicely on a table or shelf with two round metal balls strategically welded to the back side. You can also hang them from something as well.
https://frenchgraffiti.com/collections/metal-hearts-1/products/small-metal-heart
The heart locks come in a three-pack and are available on Amazon. You can write on them with an Ultra Fine Point black Sharpie marker.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GJ5QGMK?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
These are the clear frames I used for the Jesus pictures. I put His picture showing on one side, and the instructions for the activity on the back side. These come in an eight-pack option, but I’m sure you could purchase them in smaller amounts if you choose.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNHGQQ4C?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
“Thank you so much for the precious gift! 🥹 We read it all together and locked each lock. Such a special reminder we get to see each day now. Love you guys so much ♥️ Merry Christmas 🎄…
🙏🏻 we absolutely love it! Our Eternal families and those who have passed have been on my mind a lot lately, so this just felt like such a sweet reminder I needed and I know my family needed.”
“THANK YOU SO MUCH!! This is the sweetest and most thoughtful gift! We will cherish it forever!! What a beautiful way to celebrate this time of year and the life of the Savior!”
“Thank you both for thinking of our family. We did our lock activity tonight and our family loved thinking about making us eternal. We talked about how it takes each person to do their part, and the kids decided (for now at least) to keep their keys as a reminder of the locking. It was a great activity. Thank you again for thinking of us and sharing your love, especially with Cole.”
In today’s world, we ALL need a little (or a lot) more Jesus! Christmas is the perfect reminder for us to turn our thoughts and actions back to Him, the LIGHT of the world! We are each born with The LIGHT of CHRIST within our soul. As we celebrate His birth this week, may we make a new commitment to be a little kinder, and share our own LIGHT with those around us. We never know what someone else is going through. We have the choice each day to serve and act as Jesus would. Imagine how different the world would be if every person woke up each morning with a kind heart and the desire to serve someone that day.
I heard a quote this week that put things into a crystal-clear perspective, “Your 401K is not going to save you.” Yes, it’s important to be prepared; however, in the end we don’t get to take anything with us other than the knowledge we gain here on earth. The place we end up after this life will have nothing to do with the material things we amassed during our mortal existence. It will have everything to do with how we served and treated others, and that includes what we used our wealth for. Which version of Ebenezer Scrooge are we choosing to be? The dark, miserable sad one at the beginning - or the Light-filled, happy, serving one at the end? Everything we have has been given to us by a loving Heavenly Father.
My wish for you this week is to seek for His Light, and share some of your own. Both of these things are free. It’s not the material things that matter. I hope and pray that we can all take a moment to focus on the gift of Jesus this week, and “lock” our hearts to Him. May we all enjoy a very Happy Christmas!
Love Ya, Les 😊