Summer · July
The complete archive of Melissa Whitaker's essays and reflections on LDS Family Life, organized around family discipleship, honest motherhood, marriage, faith at home, and the home rhythms that shape a family over time. Showing older posts, page 15.
Practical essays on prayer, scripture study, Sabbath patterns, and building a faithful home culture in ordinary life.
First-person reflections on parenting, emotional honesty, family fatigue, closeness, and raising children without performance.
Home notes on homemaking, hospitality, steadiness, and the spiritual texture of ordinary family routines.
Essays
June 7
He asked me at the kitchen table, right in the middle of dinner. My teenager looked up and said, 'Mom, what if I am not sure I believe in God anymore?'
June 7
I spent three hours cleaning for a play date once. I vacuumed the living room, wiped down the baseboards, and hid the pile of mail in the pantry.
June 7
The crayon was melted into the carpet. I sat back on my heels and looked at the red smear and thought about how I had just vacuumed that spot.
June 6
I was folding laundry when my second-grader asked if Heavenly Father has a body like ours. She added, 'Sometimes I pray and I do not feel anything.'
June 6
The doorbell rang at 4:47 on a Tuesday afternoon. I stood there for a second, hand on the doorknob, and I had a choice.
June 6
The bread was burning. I could smell it from the living room, that sharp edge of heat that means the smoke alarm is about to join the conversation.
June 6
The juice box had been sitting on the kitchen counter since Tuesday. I stood there holding it, thinking about how many things I mean to get to but do not.
June 5
The toast crumbs stuck to my palm as I wiped the kitchen table. My second-grader had left glitter glue uncapped and a horse drawing under a math worksheet.
June 5
The timer on the microwave read 6:42. I had eighteen minutes to leave for mutual, and there I was on the kitchen floor with an egg timer and dried beans.
June 5
A Utah-shaped pancake taught me that the Sabbath is about connection, not perfection. Here is how our family found real rest.