Scripture Texting

My dad wrote this article that he plans to submit to the Ensign it is about our family.


TXT-ing Our Way Through the Scriptures

When talking with the family about how we might actually engage in family scripture
study this year my 17-year-old daughter said, somewhat tongue in cheek, that maybe Dad
could TXT a scripture to the family and then the kids could respond back when they got
around to it. She was kidding, of course – kind of a verbal “jk lol" Well, with no other
suggestions coming forward that had not failed in the past, we decided to do precisely
what my daughter had suggested. Each morning I send a TXT message to the family
with a scripture reference. I can’t type out the entire scripture because I am restricted to
160 characters in the TXT and I’m a slow TXT-er (that is a noun, isn’t it?). In addition to
the scripture reference I’ll include a short question or comment about the scripture.
For example, one day I sent the following TXT: D&C 59:8 Does a broken heart mean walking around sad all the time? Here are the four responses I received that day:
1. No. We fix it then keep moving on doing good.
2. Not sad, but humble and submissive to the will of the Lord.
3. I think it means two things. One that when we have a broken heart we can
truly complete the repentance process. And two a broken heart is not proud so
it is easy to teach and willing to accept what god has in store for their lives. So
no we are not supposed to walk around sad we are supposed to walk through
life humble.
4. No we shouldn’t walk around sad and feeling sorry for ourselves all of the
time. Just because our heart is aching or broken doesn’t mean we shouldn’t
act righteously. These responses are even more meaningful when you know that response(1) was from a nephew whose father left the family about ten years ago; response (2) is from a single mother; response (3) is from a daughter who placed a child for adoption, struggled with
substance abuse, and was recently sealed to her husband in the temple; and response (4)
was from a teenage friend of the family who had a friend commit suicide this past
Summer. So, how have things gone with this without-the-family family scripture reading? I think very well. While there are days that no one responds to my TXT, each person has
responded when there has been something that is particularly meaningful for them. And,
because everyone has received the same TXT, it has generated occasional dinner-time
conversations as well as a natural way to have specific one-on-one conversations with
individual family members. At a minimum, this TXT-ing thing is providing another way
to communicate with my teenage children in their own language.
Today there are 14 people on my family scripture txt list. In addition to my own family,
some of my children’s friends have asked to be on the list; a boy-friend of a daughter in
college is on the list; a single mother and one of her sons is on the list. This is actually
working pretty well. Maybe next year we could try family prayer this way … jk lol!