"Love you forever"

One of the books I brought with us was "Love you Forever."  As I snuggled with Pipalicious and Hava, with Avot lying on the bed in front of me, reading this book, I was touched once again by the simple and beautiful message of the book: the progression of time, the growth and departure of our children, and how priceless each stage is.

As I look to the birth of this new little one, I am moved with so many emotions at the thought of being able to share this journey with yet another of our Heavenly Father's precious children.  I love the stages, with the cantankerous-ness of 11 year olds, fighting and clawing for their individuality, the spunkiness of two-year-olds and their quest to explore the world by touch, taste, smell, and the simple expediency of dumping out everything they can as fast as they can.  There is so much to enjoy in each stage, and what an honor it is to be with our children as they move through them.

I guess to the key is to try and see where they are at and not where we "want them to be"...to see that when my 14 year old son is frustrated about a question in Seminary that he wants to answer his own way and is being marked "wrong," it is him trying to be his own person, define his own spirituality, find merit in his own opinion and experience...it is not anger at Seminary itself.  I am grateful for the Spirit that can step in and help a tired and uncertain mother know what to do, to go over and rub his shoulders and quietly be there with him as he makes his own resolutions and finds his own solutions to the frustration before him.  It is an honor to see the man growing there in that chair, a man that will be faced with so many other, far more serious dilemmas in life, and to see where a woman's role can be best felt in that man's life...in quiet support and understanding as he faces those fights that only he can fight.

I love my children, each and every one of them, as much as they drive me insane at times, and as much as I am enjoying these precious moments of quiet right now while they are all out hiking with Quinn in the nearby woods. :)  I love them for their unique choices, their unique gifts, but it has taken a lot of humility, letting go, and trust to get to that point...and I still have so far to go!  It is too easy to think that I always know what is best, because there are so many times that I have to make the call for what I feel is best to be done in a given moment (and far too often make a poor choice :)...).

The other message of the book that is so precious to me is the constancy of the mother's love, throughout the stages, the way she simply acknowledges her bond and love to her child through her song and comfort each evening.  What a challenge parenting is!  To love without expectation of love given in return.

Yet, I have yet to see an instance of that parental love, given freely, unconditionally, and consistently, that is not eventually returned to and treasured.  I guess it is the "eventually" that is so hard to wait for at times, is it not?