Mother’s Day extended…

My heart is so full as I write this!  I would love to fill yours up too! It’s SO HAPPY!

There are MANY challenges to parenting, many exclusive to mothering, we are ALL familiar with that.

And then there are many MORE rewards, many greater than we could even imagine!! (Sometimes we lose sight of that.)

My kids have been stuck on a song from their last choir concert.  It wasn’t a favorite of theirs because the chords were hard and it was so repetitive but I’m glad the message stuck as it keeps repeating itself in our heads (via singing voices all around the house& in the car), “you reap what you sow, sow what you reap”…. My husband feels it’s the message of life.  Anything we plant and nourish will eventually grow and flourish.

We would be wise to choose carefully what we put our time and energy into, and never let weeds choke out the good stuff, as in the end what we have chosen to plant and cultivate will be our reward. And obviously some seeds bear much greater, more delicious, and rewarding fruits than others! (And weeds bear no fruit at all remember – get them out!)

I believe planting the seeds of dedicated, deliberate, loving parenting will yield the most delicious rewards of all of life!

I have been feeling just some of those remarkable rewards lately. Tonight, when my family surprised me with this belated mother’s day gift I cried and cried! OK. SUPER rewarding!

I am grateful that you don’t have to be a perfect parent to share perfect love with your children.  I’m grateful children are resilient and forgiving and so loyal that they most often overlook your faults as mother or father, grandmother or grandfather, even as aunt or uncle or good friend.  They will forgive you, and even follow you! (For better or worse.)

It’s so deeply gratifying and joyful to start to see some of those hard, hard labors pay off.  Endless days and nights of diapers and painful nursing turns out beautiful little cherub babies that laugh, smile, and coo at you and their world!(Never-mind Babies staring you down in deepest love and devotion, watching your every move!) Being preschool teacher, piano teacher, cub scout leader, seminary teacher, even drill sergeant at times to my children, on top of cheerleader, taxi driver and nurse, (you know the list goes on and on) has reaped high-achieving, happy, loving highschoolers that do well in school, play piano beautifully, earn their Eagles, graduate from seminary, learn how to work, have confidence in life, now drive everywhere for me, and even want to go into medicine and teaching! LOL! So awesome.

I realize children have their free agency and many challenges of their own in life, some that seem too hard to overcome at times.  Everything does not always go as planned, but in the end we will see a great reward for our honest efforts.

I have found great comfort as a parent in this statement by Gordon B. Hinckley:

“Rise to the great potential within you. I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure. I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.”

I feel like I have and am continuing to witness miracles: miracles of motherhood, miracles of love that grows, the miracles and wonders of family. I feel like I am just starting to reap some of the delicious harvest of dedicated parenting!

I would love to share some of that delicious wonder with you! Here’s my mother’s day gift: ENJOY!

Love, C

p.s. just for the record, I also received wild daffodils picked by my five year old on her own initiative for me, a wonderful cook-book made by my daughter’s 1st grade class (funnest part was making one of the recipes together!), a gorgeous ‘hand’made bouquet (made from my 9 yr old daughter’s handprints- her being at my bedside waking me up on mother’s day to give it to me was the best part – she was SOO eager!), a gorgeous embroidery of a flower and a line from one of my favorite songs from my 14 yr old, a card with a few lines from each of the children, a great outfit (much needed), and even a beautiful painting of my oldest son with my youngest daughter (until the twins) at one of our most memorable vacations. MMmmmm… love those sweet rewards.

 

Celebrate! The rewards are worth it all!!!