After receiving this thought-provoking quote in my email inbox last week, I’ve been pondering my personal patterns of behavior and their likely affect upon the members of my family:

I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element [in my home]. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher [a mother], I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated . . . and a child humanized or de-humanized. (Haim Ginott,Teacher and Child: A Book for Teachers and Parents [New York: Macmillan, 1972], 15; adapted from the German philosopher Goethe)

I had a similar reflective reaction during the April 2010 General Conference when Boyd K. Packer boldly stated, “Unless we enlist the attention of the mothers and daughters and sisters—who have influence on their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers—we cannot progress [in the priesthood]” (Ensign, May 2010, 7).

Do we have even the slightest notion of just how incredible our potential for influence is as women? Have we ever stopped long enough to truly analyze how well we are personally using this God-given power?

I believe Satan is taking careful note of it.

In fact, I sense that masking our tremendous influence as women has been one of the adversary’s most-used tactical weapons during these final scenes here on earth; he daily attempts to blind us, to perplex us, and to place stifling self-doubts in our minds.

Do we allow him to succeed?

With increased awareness of this sacred duty, I am personally reconsidering how I daily use my influence as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, leader, and friend. Not only for the sake of “climate control” in my home, but for the sake of eternal progression.

Just one more little thing to ponder, in all that spare time of yours.

As I stood adding yet another load of dirty clothes to my trusty twenty-year-old washing machine, I heard a loud pop over my head, immediately followed by a flash of bright light. Then all was suddenly dark in my tiny laundry room.

Weeks ago, I had noticed the light seemed dimmer. In fact, I vaguely remembered having two similar experiences with popping light bulbs while working in that room. But I quickly dismissed them because I could still manage on the remaining light.

I knew that replenishing any one of the three bulbs in my light fixture would require a ladder, a bulb, effort, and time on my part. “I’ll just do it later,” I thought to myself as I decidedly adjusted to the lower levels of light.

While musing on this seemingly insignificant event, I have developed a simple analogy to which most women – especially mothers – might relate. I speak of gradual dimming.

Each one of us starts out as a bright and glowing young child – hopeful, optimistic, and believing. But, over the course of our lives, we each encounter “light-bursting” experiences – defining moments where we either chose to replenish our lights, or simply to live on less.

During these moments we may become tempted to rationalize, “It takes so much energy to replenish my light and I simply don’t have the time right now,” as the increasing darkness, being ever so gradual, becomes our new normal.

But without constantly replenishing our own light supply, over time our spirits unquestionably dim and we may sadly find ourselves feeling our way through the darkness of confusion and discouragement. We owe it to ourselves, to our families, and to all those who depend upon our light, to protect and care for this most precious asset.

So this Mother’s Day, if you’re experiencing the gradual dimming we each feel from time to time, resolve to gather your figurative ladders, bulbs, and courage by replenishing your spiritual light through daily prayer, mediation, and scripture study.

If we are willing to make the effort, I am confident we will each be flooded with an increased appreciation and love for of the Light of the World, our friend and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” (D&C 50:23–24)

Orlando truly is the happiest place on earth! I loved this extraordinary event and received a very unique and unexpected “tender mercy” while there. You see, my oldest daughter has suffered from migraine headaches all of her life. We’ve tried everything—including surgery to close a hole in her heart—with only modest success. At one point, her doctor prescribed a particular medication that had proven to be quite effective for many of his patients in reducing headaches. After filling this prescription, I just couldn’t give my daughter the medication he had prescribed. Every time I tried, I felt a strong impression that she shouldn’t take it. Logic versus spiritual prompting—an interestingly familiar dilemma most women face at times in their personal stewardships.

But while at the Orlando event, I met a woman who had become unexplainably blind eleven days after taking this very medication. Would my daughter also have had a similar adverse reaction to this drug? I’ll never know. But, for me, this experience felt like a gift from the Lord. I was able to met and connect with this brave woman on a spiritual level I will never forget, and she blessed my life with her courage and testimony. Don’t we love and need Time Out for Women!

Can’t wait to see you again,

DeAnne Flynn

Before I got married, no one ever sat me down and had “the talk.” You know, the talk about…laundry. Remarkably, even without previous counsel, I’ve developed some pretty sweet laundry skills and learned a great deal over the years. Perhaps my greatest realization is how much I’ve come to respect bleach.

With seven active children, bleach has become my trusted companion – often saving a seemingly hopeless article of clothing. It has disinfected things I would only touch with rubber gloves and a gas mask. But my careless use of this powerful aid has also ruined many more things than I’d care to admit.

Once, in haste, some drops of bleach landed on my favorite laundry room rug. I noticed these drops right away and tried to rinse them out quickly, but the power of that bleach proved to be immediate and irreversible. The next day, I carefully colored the spots in with a mustard colored marker. (I challenge you to find one of those!) It helped, but I’m still reminded of that mistake every time I do my wash. Those bleach spots have taught me a priceless lesson.

You see, bleach is a lot like words.The words we choose can lift and mend, restore and renew. They can also permanently damage and deface. Words are quick and powerful. Once uttered, they cannot be retracted. Whether we use them with care and respect, or thoughtlessness and haste, words can (and do) change lives forever.

I’ll never forget the time I overheard some friends joking about some of my weaknesses to one another in a mean-spirited way. When they realized I had heard them, they quickly came and asked to be forgiven. I did forgive, but the experience has been difficult to forget. Like bleach, the cruel stain was immediate and irreversible. Their repentance helped to fill in the painful spot (like my rare and wonderful mustard-colored marker), but the memory of those harsh words has been hard to completely erase.

The Apostle Paul delivered these wise words to the ancient Ephesians, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers….Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:29-32)

It’s so easy to speak before we think. But most of us don’t use intentionally hurtful words, we just get lazy and careless. We let our words fly like little drops of bleach here and there without measuring the effect they may have upon the hearer. The problem is, little children (and big adults) believe what we say to them. “Something’s wrong with you,” or “You just don’t get it,” or “If you could just see yourself.”

I once called my daughter a “turtle” because she often moves like cold tar. One month later, while in a piano lesson, her teacher asked her to play more quickly. She replied, “I can’t. I’m a turtle.” My careless words had stained her self-perception. If only I could take those damaging words back…

Each day we have the opportunity to mend hearts and empower lives with our words. When we use them to build and inspire – people grow. We we degrade and criticize – people shrink. Our simple words of encouragement and praise can be life-changing.

As a matter of fact, they are.

One holiday season, more than ten years ago, my Sarah asked Santa for a fancy mouse. Since Santa had no place to keep a smelly little rodent until his big delivery night, he asked the owner of a local pet shop to save a certain tiny pink-nosed critter until he could pick it up on Christmas Eve. (This Santa happened to wear skirts and drive a Big Mormon Wagon.)

Getting that animal was all Sarah could talk about. My starry-eyed five-year-old absolutely knew it would be the very best Christmas ever!

The busy festivities of the season rapidly sped by and before Santa was totally prepared for Christmas Eve, it was time to pick up the little mouse for his early-morning deliveries the next day. The pet store closed at 4:00 pm, and he barely squeezed through the doors before quitting time.

Upon asking for the mouse-on-hold, the pet store owner began to sweat. “It’s been a very crazy day,” he explained. “And things got a little bit disorganized.”

“Disorganized?” Santa questioned.

“Yes,” he continued. “Well, uhhh. You see, in all of the confusion, we sold every single mouse, hamster, and guinea pig in the store! But we do have some rats left.”

“RATS?” Santa replied in shock and amazement.

A sudden sinking feeling crept over Santa as he listened to the pet shop guy give a ten minute oration about how rats actually make much better pets than do mice, hamsters, or guinea pigs.

Thoughts of burning ham left in his oven at home began to blur Santa’s mind and he started to envision little Sarah waking up on Christmas morning, only to see a giant RAT staring back at her through the slits of the clean white cage she had chosen in November!

With no other pet store options from which to choose, Santa reluctantly boxed up two baby “female” rats — a white one with a pink nose, and a light brown one with a grayish nose. (Two-for-the-price-of-one was the very best deal Santa could strike at such a late hour.)

On Christmas morning, Sarah rushed to see the cute little cuddly mouse she had longed for, planned for, and prepared for over the course of several weeks. I held my breath as she peered carefully into the cage.

“Two wats?” she muttered, not yet “R” proficient. She stared at those rats so intently, realizing they were not at all what she had envisioned seeing there that magical morning. I saw her bite her little lip and put a smile on her determined, sweet face.

“Wow! I got TWO wats everybody! Come and see…”

Now, I’m not very pleased about my laid-back planning approach to Christmas that season, nor of the trust I placed in the pet shop owner’s guarantee of raising two female rodents (these rats had several babies – more than once) but I am sort of amazed (and especially pleased) that Sarah was able to just roll with her reality being much less exciting than her expectation had been.

As ambitious, starry-eyed grown women, we might occasionally feel like we’re staring into the cages of our own lives, only to see something MUCH DIFFERENT than we ever planned, hoped, or prepared to see waiting there for us. But like my Sarah, we each have a choice to make when we see the rats staring back. Do we throw a spoiled tantrum? Do we claim we’ve been robbed? After all, didn’t we make our life-expectations ultimately clear to our Father in Heaven through prayer?!

What Sarah had learned so well in Kindergarten that year is also great advice for us when our reality doesn’t precisely measure up to our expectations. And that’s simply, “You get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit.” After all, Heavenly Father may not be giving us exactly what we want because He knows exactly what we need.

At least, for now.

One of my most poignant childhood memories was talking late into the night with my mother one evening, sharing with her my sincere desire to feel our Savior’s love at one of the loneliest points of my life. “I’m just so homesick for heaven,” I told her quite emotionally, as if it were possible for her to simply get me on the next shuttle there.

She listened empathetically and comforted me the way she always did, but I soon realized that my need to feel Christ’s arms around me, and that my intense longing to be physically close to my Father in Heaven, wouldn’t completely leave while I was here on earth. In fact, I still have very similar feelings during various times in my life.

I don’t know why I was so surprised when my eternally sunny five-year-old daughter told me matter-of-factly not long ago, “Mom, I’m really homesick for heaven today.” I hadn’t heard those words uttered since my own childhood and they certainly spoke to my soul. I guess we are kindred spirits, Elizabeth and I.

No doubt, we all experience a longing for our heavenly home – inwardly sensing that we’re strangers here – being so far away from our true and most natural setting with God. It’s not hard to imagine how heartbreaking it must have been for our first parents when they were cut off from His presence and sent into this lone and dreary world to fend for themselves.

Today, like Adam and Eve, we’re each doing our best to “fend” and to remain faithful during our mortal sojourn. And even though we’re physically separated from our Eternal Father and His Son, we are gratefully each given a heavenly lifeline through prayer — as well as the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us while we’re away.

So, when life seems unbearably lonely and you feel like a stranger at the address printed on your bills – remember you’re probably just a little bit “homesick for heaven.” If you endure this earthly mission well, you’ll be there soon enough.

I’m sure they’ll leave the light on until you get there…