"Mothering Day"
Julia Dawn Cowell
Sunday May 8, 2011
In my college town there were not enough young single adults to have a ward or branch, just a small group of us who formed a YSA family in the Rolla MO ward, each Sunday we sat together and took our repective rolls, the notetaker, the husher, the example, the leader, the missionary, and the Mom. The Bishop's wife had been asked to speak, she was introduced as the Mother of the Ward, on that Mother's Day 2009. As she stood to give her talk the first words out of her mouth have stuck to me like glue ever since she said "I think the name of today is wrong! Today should not be Mother's Day, it should be Mothering Day". I had grown very close to this sister as she had stood by my side from the time I walked into the building one year before, a pregnant YSA, I had since lost my baby, and eventually moved back to the ward, becoming the sister all the children in the ward knew as "the lady with the froggy scriptures, toys, and crayons". I was a mother with no baby to show for it and I had come to know that I didn't need one to be a Mom. Her words were a bandaide to my broken heart, because as the recent Hallmark commercial says "On Mother's Day we don't celebrate Mother's, but rather what Mother's Do". Today I too suggest that today be celebrated as "Mothering Day". To some a mother may be defined as someone who has a child, to other's a Mother is one who finds the lost, mends the broken, comforts the sick, holds the hand, and teaches the path. Elder Bradley D. Foster of the Seventy said "Perhaps the reason we respond so universally to our mothers’ love is because it typifies the love of our Savior."
As a very young child growing up in the Jefferson City MO ward, I remember what seemed to be a running joke in the ward "Often times when the Lord gives an individual an assignment to speak, or teach, the lesson is more for the individual than those listening." While I know that this message is as much for you as it is for me, I must inform you that the preperations were every bit for me.
As a woman who walks this beautiful Earth each day with the knowledge that I am a Mother to both my children in Heaven, as well as to two beautiful, dear sweet children my husband was blessed with before our marriage, I often feel the pain and ache of empty arms. There are no children who sit beside us each Sabbath day, there are no calls for me to kiss bumps and scrapes, no noses to wipe, no little arms to hug me when I hug them, no tiny voices singing in the car, no children to accompany me to the store, some days I am even drawn to tears as even the cat seems to want nothing to do with my loving attention to him. The words that always come from others to comfort me are those reminders to be patient and to have faith that these small little blessings will be a part of my life someday, wheather in this life or the next. While I know these words are true, they do not comfort the way one would think they should.
This assignment to speak was one I was glad to accept, though the moment I was given the day and the topic my heart seemed to jump into my throat. As I spent two weeks preparing, gathering notes and quotes on motherhood I felt more and more pain creep in until Friday I finally broke down and cried to my husband, that is when I realized that the talk I had been preparing was not quite right but that what I needed to share was that which I had felt come most strongly to my heart, thus the message I share today is that each of us has the capacity to love and indeed the call from Our Father in Heaven to do so, as every mother does for her child, we are to do for Our Father's children, after all, it does "take a village to raise a child".
There is a story that has followed my family since I was only 3years old: I am the oldest and my young parents lived in Salt Lake City in 1989. We had gone to visit my Great Grandma Timpson earlier in the week and often did visit her, she was the only real mother, my Mother ever remembered. It was Easter Sunday and though the house and the diaper bag had been torn apart, my tiny church shoes were nowhere to be found. My Mom went to Grandma's to check for them, the house was locked, and the hide-a-key was not in it's usual place. We had been talking alot lately about prayer, in my Sunbeams Class, my teacher was a young newlywed not unlike myself today. I turned to my tearful Mama and suggested we pray, with a smile on her face my mother agreed we knelt together in the driveway to ask for help to find my shoes. The shoes were found moments later on a shelf in the garage. This story has been told time and time agian as we searched for everything from scriptures for talks, to slinkys and socks. Many of the objects that were lost were broken and from a very early age I relied on my Mama to "fick it". Just as every slinky my sweet Mother untangled once more slinked down the steps, my heart has also been mended by my Mother's direction to the Savior in times of trouble. With help from my Mother, and the expamples and promptings of so many women who have taken her roll when she was unable to be at my side, I have many atime taken Our Savior's invitation. Mattew 11:28-30 states
"28¶aCome unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
A Mothering Love and the Savior's love are hand in hand. Each person who takes that prompting of the Spirit to find the lost, and mend the broken, weather it be shoes and slinkys or souls and hearts, or both, takes the Savior's errand and teaches a child of God a valuable lesson to aide their return home to Our Father in Heaven. Each calling to teach Sunbeams to each calling to searve as a missionary is a call to the Savior's errand.
From a very young age I have been blessed with many great examples in the gospel! I am reminded of this everytime I read my patriarchal blessing. As deeply as I desire to be a mother and to return to my Father in Heaven, I desire to be exemplary in all that I do, that I may pass on the great lessons and blessings that I have recieved. Within every call to repentence, is a call to be something more than we are. Within every missionary message is also the message of a loving parent.
In the February 1986 Ensign a story is told of Myrna who was sent to help another in the ward. Jan was a mother who had broken her leg and was confined to the bed. The Spirit promped Myrna to go help her. When she arrived and asked what she could do the answer came back time and time agian, as it usually does, that there was nothing. The Spirit disagreed. When Myrna returned to find Jan in tears and feeling useless and embarassed action began to take place. Myrna started with dishes and laundry, then came to a large pile of mending, when she found that most only needed some hand stitching she was prompted to bring it to Jan so that she could feel useful in while immobile. Jan beamed and for the remaineder of the day Myrna, through promptings of the Spirit, found more projects for Jan while helping her keep her home cared for. Is this not what a mother would do for each of us? Mother's teach self reliance as the Savior did. Every mother with a child learnig to walk knows that they cannot follow their child around all day and stop them from falling or getting hurt, and strapping pillows to them would be silly. Just as this Sister comforted Jan in her time of sickness and trial, a mother's hand to aide a toddler to walk on thier own, is yet another valuable teaching aide to enable a child of God to return home to Our Father in Heaven. Every prompting of the Spirit to help a brother or sister in need, as well as every call to hold the hand of a child of God who needs a boost to become self-reliant again is once more a call to the Savior's errand. These calls may appear in many forms! Reflecting on the life of the Savior, how many times did He take the hand of a child in need and tell them to walk again? How many times did he reach out to a child who had fallen and offer them the way back up? How many times did he tell a capable child of God to go and do, just some simple task so that they might heal themselves?
Just as every call to repentence comes from a loving parent, every jar of the balm of Gilead also comes from our loving Parents in Heaven. As President Uchtdorf stated in October of 2008: "In the end, the number of prayers we say may contribute to our happiness, but the number of prayers we answer may be of even greater importance." Thus each prompting of the Spirit to serve another is not to be taken lightly but should instead be reviered as a call to aide in mothering a child of God.
I have the highest reguard for those who hold the title of Mother! Your calling is divine and sacred. The call to be a parent is that which says "God has entrusted you with the rearing of His own spirit children". I wish to in no way state that your call is anything less than that! My point is simply that while some may be called to serve in the home as a mother, others of us are called for a time to serve on the streets, in the markets, the primary rooms, the hallways, the pews, and the car pools to act as mothering agents to aide your cause, which is of course that of Our Father in Heaven.
If you haven't already today, I encourage you to find one of those women in your life who has mothered you, and hug them, tell them how much you appreciate their efforts. Your prompting to encourage their efforts may be your call to aide the mothering effort today.
I would like to make it known that I have a testimony of the true and everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ on the Earth. I feel blessed to know that I have a knowledge of how to better serve my purpose on Earth as a Mother, in any form, because I have a testimony of the scriptures, of personal revelation, and of a living prophet today. I know that there is no greater lesson a Mother could teach her child than to follow the Prophet! I am eternally grateful to my Mother who taught me that lesson, and gave me so much. I am also grateful for a loving husband who does his best to help me do my best, from eating Mickey Mouse pancakes so I don't get out of practice, to getting the laundry at least close to the hamper, to staying worthy together so that we may enter the House of the Lord when our time comes and be sealed together forever.
The testimony borne may be different but the message is the same and though now in type I close it the same. "In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.'
original post: Life as Will's Wife 5/16/11
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