Childviews

Broken Shoelace

Brother Floyd Murphy, the teacher of the Valiant 9 class, Morgan Hill First Ward, Morgan Hill California Stake, sent us this.

During class one Sunday, my shoelace broke. It was one of those that are round, not flat. It was made up of four thin white strings surrounded by black wrapping. The four strings were dangling out the end of the shoelace. I asked my class what the strings in the shoelace might represent. Here are their thoughts, given without any prompting or suggestions from me:

I think that the four strings are a family, and that the one big string holds them together. When it is not there, they are not held together. So the one big string is the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ, and when you put it together with the four strings, you have a family that is hard to break because you have a family that has the gospel.

Joshua Hamm, age 9

The four white strings represent your family, and the black string represents the gospel. The black string wraps around the four white strings to make them stronger. This is like the gospel wrapping around your family to keep your family strong.

Courtney Whidden, age 9

When I saw the shoelace with the four white strings, I thought of the four standard works. They are the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The black string wrapped around the four white strings represents that we will always have a better knowledge of the gospel with all four standard works instead of just one.

Chelsie Faulk, age 9

I thought that each of the strings represented one person, and all of the people put together make one family. The family is harder to break with the gospel because it is stronger. If the family is without the gospel, it is easier to break because it is weaker.

Laura Pollard, age 9

Illustrated by Brad Teare