This last month was CRAY-Z.
I was sick multiple times and out of town a few times , thus the blogging didn't get done. Guilty as charged.
First of all, Happy Mother's Day mamma! I have no idea how you raised all of us six kids. But thank you for all the sleepless nights and girls talks. Thank you for teaching me how to paint my nails and showing me I am as strong as any boy. Thank you for teaching me who I am and where I came from and how much God loves me. Thank you for all the girl talk, all the hugs. Thank you for staying up late to talk and for laying with me in the sun, and for never giving up on me when I was a little more than disobedient. Thank you for teaching me how to cook, clean, and getting gum out of my hair more than once. Thank you for being an amazing example of service, love, and faith. I guess what I am trying to say is, thank you for being my mom and loving me unconditionally.
In light of some recent events as well as various personal experiences I have had while at church today, I have come to gain a greater understanding of a simple known fact. Something that has been laying dormant inside my heart until the past few weeks.
Ever since I was a little girl the idea of motherhood never appealed to me. In my head there has never been anything more important than living my life to the fullest in whatever manner I saw fit. I never wanted to get married and even the thought of having my own children brought me anxiety and - if I'm being totally honest - grossed me out. The thought of nine months of morning sickness and being uncomfortable to years of wiping boogers and bottoms was not in the cards for my future. Although I had strong feelings about all of this, I never disrespected any mother in any way. In fact, I held them up on a pedestal for doing what I never wanted. Additionally, I felt guilty for feeling this way, knowing that there are so many women who want children and cannot have them or have to go through years of waiting and pain to get even just one.
So, of course, as God intended for me, I ended up married. At a young age, too. It wasn't because I was seeing through rose colored glasses or because there was a need to be with The Babe all the time that I made the choice to get married so young. No, it was because I found a man who brought adventure to my life, who helped me see life from a different point of view, and who I loved in a deeper way than I thought possible.
I always knew that one day George and I would have children. Not that this is what I ever wanted, but it is what I knew in my heart. I, as a daughter of God, have a divine right to raise a family and to one day, in one way or another, be called 'mother.'
Over the past couple of years I could feel the Lord working on me, molding me into becoming the future mother He wants me to be. I started working with children in church, and, seeing how I have five siblings who all have at least two children, they started to grow on me. Now, years later, I find myself working with children in my career and loving every minute of those cute little faces (even if they may not be so excited to see me seeing as it means they're at the dentist).
Just out of nowhere, about six months ago, the Lord, in many ways, began to change me. I used to say, that I loved kids, but I didn't want any of my own. But in light of so many things that have happened in the last six months, I have come to realize that I DO want to be a mother. It was today, while in church, listening to one of my best friend give a talk about motherhood that I realized this. She gave a quote by one of our deer prophet's wives, Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley.
She said, “I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”― Marjorie Pay Hinckley
It was in a handful of recent events including this one today as I sit in my pew, thinking of my dear mother and mother in law and of all my sisters who are all mothers, tears streaming down my cheeks as Heavenly Father helped me realize that someday, I will be a mother. I want sticky kisses. I want to make peanut butter and jelly for little bellies. I want someone to cling to my hip and call me "mamma." I want to hold a little hand in mine. I want to look at George as he proudly holds his first born. I want that. I want to be a mother. And, heaven forbid, if I cannot have children of my own, then I will find other children to be a mother to. After all, it is not just a divine right to love our own children, but to love all children and to see all people as children of God.
That is what life is about, right? Recognizing that we are children of God and that we must help others realize the same.
So, Happy Mother's Day. No matter where you are in life. Even if you are a single woman with no children or a woman who has lost a child. Goodness, even if you have ten children . . . Happy. Mother's. Day. Because you are a woman. And you are a child of God. And He loves you.