Music and the Spoken Word: Moments, joys and fatherhood

Each daily decision to set a good example, to live with integrity, to love with loyalty and to spend time together strengthens the bond between father and child. Surely there's no better use of a father's energy, heart and time.

Editor's note: “The Spoken Word” is shared by Lloyd Newell each Sunday during the weekly Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast.

Most fathers know that fatherhood can be the source of life's greatest joy and its deepest satisfaction. Of course, they also know that no work demands more of their energy or more of their heart. It takes time and effort to do fatherhood well.

Knowing all of this, it can be hard for a well-intentioned father to know if his limited time and less-than-perfect efforts are making a difference. For such fathers, these words of counsel from two wise, experienced fathers may help: One said, "Moments are the molecules that make up eternity!" (see Elder Neal A. Maxwell, "The Tugs and Pulls of the World," Ensign, November 2000). And another observed: "It is not so much the major events as the small day-to-day decisions that map the course of our living. … Our lives are, in reality, the sum total of our seemingly unimportant decisions and of our capacity to live by those decisions" (see President Gordon B. Hinckley, "Caeser, Circus or Christ?" Brigham Young University devotional, Oct. 6, 1965, speeches.byu.edu).

It could be that the best way for a father to bless and influence his children is by doing simple things with them, day to day, over and over: playing catch, washing dishes, weeding the garden, working on homework — just being together. Lasting memories are built in moments like these. Each daily decision to set a good example, to live with integrity, to love with loyalty and to spend time together strengthens the bond between father and child. Surely there's no better use of a father's energy, heart and time.

Yes, fatherhood comes with its sorrows and heartache as deep and poignant as its joys. But when a father has invested himself in the small daily moments, he doesn't give up easily. He keeps loving, keeps trying, keeps being there for his family. Such efforts may seem insignificant at the time, but eternity is composed of these simple moments, and they add up to some of the deepest, most lasting joys that heaven grants us on earth.