Motherhood

Tonight's thoughts are about the family. Yet, not every woman will be a mother & not every person shall marry. I remember in my 20s, as an unmarried woman & all my friends were marrying, or it seemed like all my friends were marrying, how I would ache when I heard the conference talks about marriage & motherhood. I felt like I was unworthy, yet I did not want to marry, just to marry. I knew that if I weren't happy in, & of myself, someone else couldn't make me happy.

"How sweet is the assurance, how comforting is the peace that come from the knowledge that if we marry right and live right, our relationship will continue, notwithstanding the certainty of death and the passage of time. Men may write love songs and sing them. They may yearn and hope and dream. But all of this will be only a romantic longing unless there is an exercise of authority that transcends the powers of time and death."

--Gordon B. Hinckley, "The Marriage That Endures", Ensign, Jul 2003, 2–7

I know I married right, but living right? I guess all we can do is strive to live the commandments - line upon line, precept upon precept.

"Motherhood is not what was left over after our Father blessed His sons with priesthood ordination. It was the most ennobling endowment He could give His daughters, a sacred trust that gave women an unparalleled role in helping His children keep their second estate. As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. declared, motherhood is "as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood itself."

--Sheri L. Dew, "Are We Not All Mothers?", Ensign, Nov 2001, 96

Then after we were married & couldn't have children, I cried over that. A friend told me it was easier to have them than to raise them. I did not believe her, but I do now. And I've used that line with others, too.