As my kids are getting older and taking on new roles for themselves, I really have had much contemplation on my greatest role as being their mother. I have sorrow for my older ones as they have been my lab rats in the sense that everything was practiced on them first. I find myself a much better and patient mother to my younger ones than I was to my older ones. I am grateful for repentance and forgiveness, as I try and become better today than I was yesterday. My greatest joys and sorrows have been because of my wonderful and beautiful children.
I wonder what I can do better today than I did yesterday? I feel so much that they have got to be valiant and strong and so do I as their mother. They are being raised in enemy territory with so much of the world pulling at them. I need to make my home a place of refuge and peace. Sometimes that is hard but I have got to be willing to do better daily.
I came across some amazing quotes that I would love to share. They have really helped me have the desire to do better and not get so down on myself when my children choose to go astray.
"Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang."
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 11:215)
Another one that I really liked.
A successful parent is one who has loved, one who has sacrificed, and one who
has cared for, taught, and ministered to the needs of a child. If you have done all of these and your child is still wayward or troublesome or worldly, it could well be that you are, nevertheless, a successful parent. Perhaps there are children who have come into the world that would challenge any set of parents under any set of circumstances. Likewise, perhaps there are others who would bless the lives of, and be a joy to, almost any father or mother. My concern today is that there are parents who may be pronouncing harsh judgments upon themselves and may be allowing these feelings to destroy their lives, when in fact they have done their best and should continue in faith. (Howard W. Hunter, Conference Report, October 1983)
I hope to do better, be better and rely on the Holy Ghost to help me be the best parent I can be.
10 years ago
2 comments:
I think that there is no role so completely designed to plunge us into the depths of humility and make us see our need to rely on the Savior as the role of being a parent. I love my children, and I want to be a good mother to them, but it seems that not a day goes by that I'm not late to something, or that I don't forget something, or lose something, such as my patience or my temper, or in some other way fall short of my own or somebody elses expectations. On Halloween, for example, I somehow lost the diamond out of my wedding ring while I was running erands in town, and was consequently late for Trunk or Treat because I felt compelled to fruitlessly search for that sparkly little rock. I forgot Allison's Achievement Day activity yesterday, but didn't have the heart to tell her that she missed it--just one more example of Mom not measuring up. None of us completely measure up to our own, or others expectations, and none of us completely measure up to the expectations of the Savior in our lives or in our roles as parents. I'm am grateful that we do have the Savior and that he has extended these promises and reassurances to us when we try to do our best. I may comment on this more later, but right now I still don't have a functional computer, the library is about to close, and Ana and Asa have been whining and crying for me to finish so we can go home for lunch.
I just finished sifting through a vacuum bag of dirt and hair in search of my lost diamond. I have had the bag for over a week--donated by one of the businesses I visited that day. It's been hard to build up enough faith that the lost jewel might be there hiding amidst all that filth in order to actually check. It was a sunny afternoon today, so I spread it all out in the sunshine in hopes that if the diamond were there, it would sparkle in response to the bright light, and I would find my lost treasure. No such luck, but I did find a few paperclips and bobby pins.
It made me think more about the treasure that the diamond was meant to symbolize--the eternal family love that our temple sealings are meant to safeguard and perpetuate. As a mother, my true jewels are my children. My real treasure is my family. I don't really care very much whether the ring on my finger holds a diamond, or the cheaper imitation, cubic zirconia, but it did mean something to me that even though we couldn't afford the diamond at the time that we were married, that my husband chose to replace the cubic zirconia in my wedding ring with a real diamond as soon as he was financially able to do so. The two stones might have looked the same on the outside, but the diamond had much greater value, similarly to the way in which a marriage outside of the temple might initially appear just as beautiful on the outside, but it cannot compare to the genuine and lasting treasure that can only be found inside the House of The Lord. The gesture of love my husband showed was the real treasure, even if the diamond is lost, as long as we can foster the kind of relationships that would honor our temple sealing which it was meant to symbolize, then the true treasure is not lost. Even if I never find the lost stone, I pray that someone will find it, and recognize its value. I would rather imagine that my lost diamond could somehow end up being the answer to another person's prayer, than to imagine it forgotten and unseen in a gutter or landfill. I will be quite content if my ring is restored to it's original setting. The cubic zirconia that I wore in the temple on the day that I was sealed to my husband might not be a great treasure in the eyes of the world, but it is still of great value to me. I'm glad I kept it.
I love the promises that you posted about the lost jewels that mean the most to us, the children that go astray. They are a reminder, that even if our jewels seem lost, we must have the faith to keep searching for them. Even if they seem buried in filth they still have eternal worth. If exposed to the true light of Christ, they will still sparkle. Addison was ordained to the priesthood this past Sunday. I hope he always honors that priesthood, and stays on the Gospel path, but we will be sending him out into a deceitful world where virtue is often mocked and vice is celebrated. I hope that we can adequately prepare him for what he will encounter. To a parent, there are times that free agency is a frightening thing. But, sometimes it is through the wrong choices that we make that we ultimately gain the greatest degree of wisdom, and memories of struggling through darkness increase our appreciation of the Light.
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