Motherhood

I'm not very good at putting my own words together, and I'm not a huge reader,but when I love when I come across something that describes exactly how I feel, and what I would write if I could piece the words together myself. Read this on C.J Enjoy it blog this morning, love it:

If I am a good mother it’s because I have one, a fun-loving and bright spirited woman who hates to see her children endure hard things, but never hesitates to praise them for coming through on the other side. This was the case for me, when I spent five child-less years with a heavy heart wanting to more than anything to be a mother. She cried with me for all those years and was there the day it finally happened, when that little being was swaddled and handed to me on the hospital bed.

And after that happened--the initiation into motherhood--I was surprised to realize how much it actually felt like bits and pieces of my former life. There were elements of babysitting, aunthood and sisterhood, but most of all there was a definite reminder of my time as a full-time missionary. The bodily exhaustion mixed with the divine reaching and mingling of the veil I could not deny. Then and today, I think of both motherhood and missionary service when I hear the Lord’s promise to the elders of the early church, “for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”

If the “errand of angels is given to women” as the hymn Sisters in Zion is written, I can testify that this calling does not end for women when we die. As promised, on days where I have done my part to connect to holiness, I can feel an undeniable force of angels in my home. Women who are watching over my children and encouraging me along. They are the women who lived before me, my grandmother, my great grandmothers, ancestors who share my blood and my mission. They are there in the early mornings when an intense set of morning sickness has settled in and I have no energy to get the baby from the crib. It’s on those mornings I hear from the nursery the baby completely entertained as if someone were there with her, making her laugh and indulging her in happy conversation. This buys me a few minutes of catching my resolve to get up and get going. If I am a good mother it’s because of the angels round about me bearing me up.

Also as promised, I know the Lord is there too--on my right hand on my left. It was His Spirit of warning I felt when I found a lump my son's shoulder, and it was His Spirit of comfort I felt in the Doctor’s office as we held our unaware two year old down for an emergency removal of the lump—an extremely painful procedure void of any numbing—an intense situation I hope to never repeat again. And it was He who I prayed to with overwhelming gratitude learning that the lump was only an abscess and not something more serious.

But He’s there in the quiet times too, when there’s just the creaking of a rocking chair and my baby’s soft sleeping breath on my chest. Those are the times He says to me, “You are a good mother because you are willing to try.”

I know the Lord loves women, and I know He loves the men who love them. And I know he blesses the children with a friendship of angels, both here on earth and in heaven. I know this is the holiest of work, and we do it in His name, Jesus Christ, amen.