A few years ago, I developed the very bad habit of lingering longer after my youngest daughter’s bedtime routine. Together, we’d find reasons for me to stay and talk in the dark long after she should have let herself go to sleep — sometimes resulting in my own 20-minute nap before bedtime.

For all the dysfunctions that followed — including a few dishes left in the sink overnight or missed pillow talk with my husband — precious benefits have emerged, especially as my daughter is preparing for baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Maybe because she’s my youngest, I’ve watched more carefully for the signs of emerging accountability before she turns 8 years old. One of the best is her desire to finish reading the Book of Mormon before her baptism. One of the hardest was her invitation for me to leave after scripture time, “because I really don’t need you to stay until I fall asleep, Mom.”

A few times, she’s stopped me at the door, saying, “I have a question.” Together, we’ve discovered possible solutions to friendship triangles, tough spelling words and worries about her crooked new teeth. We’ve talked about her fears and anxieties as well as her simple hopes and sweet dreams.

In the last month, I’ve been glad the lights were off so she couldn’t see my jaw hit the floor with her last-minute questions.

“Mom, what’s transgender?” she asked when Caitlyn Jenner topped the headlines.

“Mom, why do girls want to marry girls?” she asked after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage.

I’ve been grateful for the times when her tough social questions came while we still had the scriptures open, so I wasn’t left to my own words for the answers. We were reading in Mosiah 8 about seers and prophets when she initially asked, “So being a seer is better than being a prophet?”

Before I could dig up a simple, yet satisfying answer, she said, “Well, I’d like to know the future, but I don’t get to be either a seer or a prophet because I’m a girl.”

Her frustration was real and evident in the fact that her voice cracked as she said those last three words.

I started to say, “Well nobody wants to be a prophet or a seer. It’s a tough job.”

But luckily, my eyes caught the next verse in our reading before I went much further.

Thus God has provided a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.

This was the favorite Book of Mormon verse of one of my teachers at the Missionary Training Center. He had us stand and recite those words with boldness and courage — a tool that became useful to me more than once on my full-time mission and many times since.

I told my daughter that in the scriptures, sometimes “man” means “mankind,” not “men." And so in that verse, “man” could be replaced by the words “7-year-old girl.”

I told her if she has faith, even as a child, she can work mighty miracles … and miracles were much more powerful than the ability to see into the future.

I reminded her of the miracle she'd performed that very week when she comforted a friend whose dog was taken away because it bit her little brother.

I watched in the rear-view mirror of my car as this little girl crumpled with the news that her dog had been immediately taken to the Humane Society before she could say goodbye. I watched my daughter slide over and put her arm around her and say, “It’s OK, I know how you feel. I was sad when my dog ran away and I couldn't say goodbye.”

She was mourning with those who mourned and comforting those who stood in need of comfort — exactly in line with her pending baptismal covenants.

“You worked a mighty miracle for Deanna,” I said. “Her heart was broken and you helped her. That’s more powerful than seeing the future because you can make miracles happen every single day for others if you’re willing and have faith.”

Gender or priesthood office or church callings or age in no way define those who can perform mighty miracles and be a great benefit to others. Even my daughter has all the power to do good because her works are based on faith in a world that is failing her. Her choice to be baptized will empower her even more as the gift of the Holy Ghost will guide her innate goodness.

So often as parents, we feel like we’re navigating our way in the darkness, not knowing what to do or what to say at those critical moments.

After five kids, I’m a little more willing to see hope in the moonlight, to hold hands and pray and to realize this cumbersome journey is so much easier with scriptures, covenants and family.

Stacie Lloyd Duce is a columnist and magazine editor featured regularly in several Montana and Utah publications. Her columns appear on deseretnews.com. Email: duceswild7@gmail.com