Over the summer, while we had my friend and her kids living with us, there were some serious challenges. I hoped blessings would come out of those challenges, and the blessing I really wanted was to be a better mom.  While the Thomas family was here, I astounded myself (not all that hard) by how good of a mom I was able to be.  As I think I've mentioned previously, I think it is because the regular temptations didn't seem to be there as much--the Lord blocked them somehow.  That was nice, but realistically, I knew that couldn't be a long-term thing.  And sure enough, the temptations/frustrations /impatience, etc. came back.  I was disappointed, but that was that.  Back to regular old me.  Then something amazing happened.  Here’s a recap from a few weeks ago:

10-16-2007

These last few days a new sense of contentment has come upon me.  It is a beautiful sensation of joy and gratitude, of safety and purpose and deep-rooted well-being.   The contentment is about my role as a mother.  I don't know what happened to make it come about—I have known that the role of mother is essential and the most important thing I can do since I was a teenager.   But perhaps I have only known it as one may learn a principle in school, without experiencing the actual application and results of it.  Perhaps I am growing up a little bit.   It is a more mature feeling, somehow.  Perhaps I am actually getting to be an adult now that I am nearly 30.  I'm not sure what it is exactly, and I believe from past experience with my own feelings that it is likely to wax and wane, but I hope it remains in some form.  I bore my testimony about it on Sunday—about how when we follow the counsel of the prophets and of the Lord, we learn why He has given us that counsel, and it is because it brings us joy.   Of course motherhood is and will continue to be a challenge, exhausting, often exasperating, and yet I am finding so much satisfaction in it.  I look at my children and they are wonderful to me, and the voices of society, encouraging a career or some more visible use of my talents become almost laughable.  Why would I have any desire to give up this sweet, deep, transforming joy that I have found?   For some money?  This is far more precious—eternally more precious.  For self-actualization?   But I find myself actualized more beautifully and fully and freely than I could believe a job, with its myopic purpose and inherent limits, could ever actualize me.  For the satisfaction of praise and recognition? Is there true satisfaction in external rewards?   Is satisfaction not born of integrity and self-knowledge, of personal improvement and strength?  I feel like I have at last grown roots deep enough to tap into the source of Living Water, and my need for the approval of others is diminishing.   My testimony of Motherhood as something truly divine is growing.  I look at my children and see glorious, eternal spirits—children of God.   And I, also, am a glorious, eternal daughter of God.  What other work could there be for me but an eternal work, shaping and loving and teaching and blessing other eternal beings?   What a profound gift God has given, to delineate as my work an eternal work, a glorious work, a work that will never pass away.  What a gift to be a mother, to be allowed a shelter from the storms, to be a caretaker of the sacred home.   I feel that I see more clearly how deeply the Lord loves me, and how precious my nature is, in understanding the role He has given me of Mother.

Anyway, the amazing thing is that with that deepened understanding, I have found my ability to be a good mother considerably strengthened.  No temptations was nice, but didn't really help me.  This strength, which has at times felt like a mantle of glory, is mine to keep, I believe, if I remain worthy and honor my role.  Praise the Lord!  He answered my prayers, He gave me what I most wanted—the ability to be a better mother—in a way I couldn’t possibly have understood to ask for.  I didn't get to bare my testimony today, but I will share it here.  God knows and loves us and it is His business to perfect us.  Sometimes we are not aware of the impurities He is burning out until we have emerged from the fire and checked ourselves over, and then, what joy!  we find ourselves purer and see Him more clearly!  He is truly the Master, the Way, the Truth and the Light.  I am so grateful to see His hands at work in my life.