Sacred Unplanned Moments: Shifting from Curriculum to Connection

She was sitting on the edge of the bathtub with her hair dripping onto a towel, wrapped in the hooded dinosaur towel she has refused to give up since she was two. I was kneeling on the bathmat, already thinking about the next thing. Dishes and pajamas and the email I needed to send. But she looked up at me with water still on her eyelashes and said, totally out of nowhere, "Mom, if Heavenly Father made everything, who made Heavenly Father?"

I sat down on that bathmat in the damp bathroom with the towel still in my hand. The honest version is I did not have a good answer. I had a seminary answer and a Primary answer and a standard-issue theological answer, but sitting on that bathmat with a dripping seven-year-old I realized none of those answers mattered as much as the fact that she asked the question at all. She asked it in the damp air of the bathroom while I was holding a towel, and she trusted me with it. That was the moment I sat down on that bathmat, not the answer. The moment.

I have been thinking about that bathmat conversation all week. Here is what I have been sitting with. I used to think spiritual teaching happened during the scheduled parts, like the scripture study block and the home evening lesson and the planned prayer where everyone sits still and takes turns. But the moments that actually stick are almost never the ones I planned.

How to Teach the Gospel to Kids Naturally

I spent five years in a third-grade classroom before I had children of my own, and I learned something there that I am still trying to apply at home. The best teaching moments in my classroom almost never happened during the lesson I had written in my plan book. They happened during the transitions, like the five minutes between activities when a kid raised a hand and asked something real, or the walk to the lunchroom when a quiet student finally said what she was thinking, or the moment after a recess dispute when someone asked why it is so hard to be kind.

The same thing is true at home, where the gospel gets taught in the spaces between the things I have scheduled. A child asks why we pray before we eat while I am packing lunches. Someone in the back seat asks if animals go to heaven while I am driving carpool. A whisper comes in the dark while I am tucking someone in: "Is Heavenly Father real, or is He just a story?"

These questions used to catch me off guard at first, and I would fumble for the right answer and feel like I had failed. My prepared responses were never enough. But I have learned that the fumbling is part of it. The child does not need a polished answer. They need to see that their question mattered enough to make me stop what I was doing and sit on the bathmat.

Dealing with Interrupted Family Scripture Study

Let me be honest about scripture study in our house and how rarely it goes like I picture it. I have a vision of us sitting in a circle with the scriptures open and reverent faces and meaningful discussion. The reality is someone is whining, someone else is climbing on the couch, and the toddler is eating the Book of Mormon cover. I have closed the scriptures more times than I can count and thought that it did not count.

But I am starting to think it counted more than I knew. The interruption is not the failure of the study. The interruption is the study.

I wrote about this a little in Art of the Small Sacred: Finding Discipleship in Daily Chaos, about how the real spiritual work happens in the small unplanned moments, not in the polished lesson. And I keep coming back to that. When the toddler pulls the scriptures off the table and we chase her instead of finishing the chapter, that is still a spiritual experience. We are learning patience and grace and that the word of God does not stop being true just because we did not get through all ten verses.

Teaching Children about Faith in Unplanned Moments

The unplanned moments have their own kind of authority. They are not rehearsed so they are not fake. When a child catches me off guard with a hard question and I pause and say, "I do not know the answer to that, but I love that you asked it," I am teaching something I could never teach in a lesson. I am teaching that faith is not about having all the answers. It is about being willing to sit in the question together.

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. - Deuteronomy 6:6-7

That verse has always been about the formal teaching to me. But I read it differently now. "When thou sittest in thine house" and "when thou walkest by the way" and "when thou liest down" are not lesson times. Those are ordinary times. The scripture is telling us to teach in the middle of normal life, not because we are prepared but because we are present.

LDS Parenting Tips for Busy Families

I have learned that the key to this kind of teaching is not preparation. It is attention. I cannot plan for the bathmat question before it happens. But I can pay attention when it does. I can put down the phone or stop thinking about the dishes or pause the mental list I am running through my head and look at the child who is asking me something real.

Here is what I would tell you: stop trying to create perfect spiritual moments and start paying attention to the ones already happening around you. A child who is scared at bedtime and wants to talk about heaven is offering you an invitation. The argument in the car about fairness is a gospel conversation waiting to happen, and a sudden question in the middle of breakfast about why bad things happen is not an interruption at all. It is the lesson.

Moving beyond Formal Home Evening Lessons

I used to plan home evening the way I planned a classroom unit, with an object lesson and a song and a treat and a prayer and discussion questions printed out. I was good at it and the lessons were fine, but they had a ceiling. They could only go as deep as my prep work allowed.

The lessons that went deeper were the ones I did not plan at all. One evening a family council went sideways and we ended up talking about forgiveness instead of the activity I had planned. Another night we skipped the lesson entirely because someone had a hard day and what they actually needed was to sit on the couch and eat popcorn and know they were loved. Those nights do not show up on a chart of completed lessons, but they are the nights my kids remember.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do I do if my child asks a hard gospel question and I do not know the answer?

Tell them the truth by saying, "That is a wonderful question and I am not sure of the answer. Let us look it up together." That response is more powerful than a polished answer because it models humility and shows that seeking truth is a lifelong process. You are teaching your child that faith is not about knowing everything. It is about being willing to search.

I feel guilty when we miss our scheduled family prayer or scripture study. How do I overcome this?

Shift your focus from the schedule to the relationship by remembering that the goal is not a perfect streak of completed study sessions but a child who knows they are loved by you and by the Savior. A single heartfelt conversation during a tough moment can mean more than a month of formal study done without heart. Let yourself off the hook.

How can I recognize when an unplanned moment is actually a teaching opportunity?

Pay attention to your child's curiosity and emotional state, because when they ask a sudden question or bring up something that is bothering them, the Spirit is often preparing them to receive something true. These moments are invitations, and the hardest part is noticing them before the mental list of other things steals your attention.

I still think about that bathmat conversation and how I almost missed it because I was thinking about the dishes and the pajamas and the email. I am grateful I sat down instead, and that I did not rush to an answer, and that I let her question hang in the damp air for a minute before I said anything at all.

The unplanned moments are not interruptions. They are the curriculum. And the only thing we really need to do is notice them.

with love, Melissa