The Foolish Man Built His House Of Gingerbread

I remember growing up, my grandma would give us a gingerbread house to make around Christmas time. All of us crowded around the long table - some of us sitting ON the table, much to the chagrin of my grandmother, I'm sure - so that we could put this house together!
Just last week I had the chance of a lifetime: to put together another gingerbread house. We all gathered around the end of the kitchen table to create our masterpiece.

I'm sure many are familiar with the story from the Bible of the wise man and the foolish man. The wise man built his home on a rock. The foolish man built his house on the sand. When the storms came and "beat upon the house," the home founded on a rock survived and the house built on the sand crumbled.
It's a pretty basic story. The children in Primary love to sing, "The wise man built his house upon a rock! The wise man built his house upon a rock! The wise man built his house upon a rock and the rain came tumbling down!"

Well, this time, the foolish man's house was made of gingerbread.

There were a couple of problems that were quick in making themselves known to us:
The first was that the frosting wasn't coming out quickly enough to properly cement the pieces of gingerbread together.
Second, the frosting, once we had it coming out of the bag in a thicker line, wasn't sticky enough to hold the massive pieces of gingerbread together. Irk.

We stuck all of the pieces together and they held...for about 2 minutes. In order to remedy the situation, Sister Harris held all of the pieces together while they were being decorated. Her patience was quite remarkable considering the number of people who were trying to work on the gingerbread house around her arms.

When everyone had decorated to their heart's content, Sister Harris slowly let go of the corners of the house.
Ever so slowly,

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What are we made of? And what is our FOUNDATION made of? If it's gingerbread, we're not going to last very long. (I can say that from personal experience.)
If, however, we are built on the foundation of our Savior, Jesus Christ, no storm, no matter how large, will ever be able to tear us down.
 "...however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines." ("The Laborers in the Vineyard," General Conference April 2012)

No matter where we are now, we can choose to build our foundation on the perfect rock of Jesus Christ. All it takes is daily study of the scriptures, daily prayer, going to church, and seeking to access the power of the Atonement through worthily partaking of the sacrament each week.

See? It's simple! Let's not be built on (or of) gingerbread.