Godliness with Contentment | Mary Ellen Edmund | 1995

This speech was given on November 21, 1995.

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"I pray that the Holy Ghost will help us receive what we need this morning—that both your prayers and mine will be answered. I want to begin by sharing a little story I first read many years ago:

Two little children were put early to bed on a winter’s night, for the fire had gone out, and the cold was pouring in at the many cracks of their frail shanty.

The mother strove to eke out the scantiness of the bed-covering by placing clean boards over the children. A pair of bright eyes shone out from under a board, and just before it was hushed in slumber, a sweet voice said, “Mother, how nice this is! How I pity the poor people who don’t have any boards to cover their children with this cold night.”

I suppose one reason this story struck me so deeply is because I want to be more like that: content, aware of my blessings. I can hear myself complaining: “Mom! Charlotte’s board is bigger than mine!” Or “Hey! I’m going to get slivers!” This little girl was able to look at everything from the perspective of what she had—not what she didn’t have. And she was concerned about those who didn’t have as much as she did rather than