by Annette Lyon
When the nurses first handed me the bundle that was my son, it never once occurred to me that one of my biggest jobs in raising him would be in how I personally honored the priesthood, first as an example to him and later as I honored his priesthood.

It began with small things, really. It might have been things as small as our son watching as I deferred to his father calling someone to say the blessing on dinner or conducting Family Home Evening. Before school started, he listened to me discuss the importance of the father’s blessings the children were about to receive. When he was young, those small things added up: supporting my husband in his callings, even when it meant early mornings getting the kids ready for church by myself when Dad was at church meetings, or making treats for Dad’s home teaching families at Christmas time. Other small things he might notice, like raising my hand to sustain the prophet during General Conference.

The older my son got, the less black and white honoring the priesthood became—there were times when I’d get frustrated with the bishop in my calling, but saying so aloud in front of my son wouldn’t be good. And then that thought would make me take stock of whether I was truly sustaining my bishop as I should be in the first place.

I have three daughters, so teaching them to honor the priesthood has been something important to me as well, and I think all those little things have made a big difference in how they see the honorable men in their lives. I like to think that those little things I’ve tried to do help my children notice when an uncle or a male cousin or a grandfather lives up to his priesthood duties.

To me, the biggest way I’ve found myself honoring the priesthood over the last couple of years has been honoring my son’s relatively new priesthood. I find more joy than I ever imagined in reminding him to press his white shirts, in driving him to the chapel so he can gather fast offerings, in the quiet surprise of finding how much he enjoys being the priesthood pianist—a calling he received at the age of thirteen. I made sure he knows how pleased I am when I saw him fulfill his calling as Deacon’s Quorum president so honorably. I prayed for him to feel prompted to know how to help his fellow deacons. Never in my life have I wanted a priesthood holder to be able to feel his priesthood duties and the joy and satisfaction that can come from a calling more than for my son.

As we prepared for his ordination to teacher just a month ago, he mentioned how excited he was to have his oldest cousin there in the circle—a cousin he hadn’t seen in nearly a year since his mission homecoming, but a cousin he’s admired for his spiritual strength all his life. If there is anyone I would want my son to emulate in this life, it would be his cousin Mike, a young man who honors his priesthood like no one else I know from his generation.

At the actual ordination, I wept like a child as I looked around the circle of men placing their hands on his head—worthy men holding the priesthood, men who love my son, men who had come specifically to honor him and the new office he was receiving that day.

As I ponder on that day and all the days since my son’s birth—and all the days that will come until I send him on his mission and thereafter—I realize that honoring the priesthood comes down to what much of the gospel does: the small and simple things we choose to do every day.

I can’t think of a single, spectacular moment of “honoring the priesthood” when there was a flash of lightning and I, my son, or our family, did or learned what that meant or we did some huge, noble thing. It’s all been a gradual process, a daily thing, something you make part of yourself because it’s who you are and how you view life.

I honor my son because of the amazing young man he has become, and a big part of that is honoring his priesthood and supporting him in every possible way I can in that.

Small and simple things. Yet from them, great things come to pass.