Lessons in Learning

I had the opportunity to teach in Relief Society today {for those who are not members of the LDS church that is our Women's Organization} and it was truly humbling. I was given a talk entitled "That Our Children May See the Face of the Savior" from our last General Conference to base my lesson on. I spent a lot of time reading different messages that have been shared about our own relationships with the Savior, how we can teach our children about him, and how important it is for us as parents to use everyday teaching moments to teach about Christ and live our lives as an example of Him. I often find that I am the one who needs the lessons the most when I am asked to speak. There was so much that I wanted to share with the sisters about the importance of our jobs as mothers. I had WAY too much content for the amount of time I had {I ended up having to skip over at least 3 pages of notes}. I cried WAY too often and felt like a babbling idiot more than once (which is BIG for me because I am typically a very unemotional person who only cries about 3 times a year ... really). In the end I can only hope that the ladies there walked away with a small portion of what I did.

I ended my lesson with this quote that came from a talk that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shared in a talk over 10 years ago {you can read his entire talk HERE} - it is an excerpt from a letter that was sent to him from a young mother who struggled at times with feelings that she couldn't measure up to the tasks expected of her (boy, can I relate). To quote from his talk:

But one thing, she said, keeps her going: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent, even if some of His children make Him weep.
“It is this realization,” she says, “that I try to recall on those inevitably difficult days when all of this can be a bit overwhelming. Maybe it is precisely our inability and anxiousness that urge us to reach out to Him and enhance His ability to reach back to us. Maybe He secretly hopes we will be anxious,” she said, “and will plead for His help. Then, I believe, He can teach these children directly, through us, but with no resistance offered. I like that idea,” she concludes. “It gives me hope. If I can be right before my Father in Heaven, perhaps His guidance to our children can be unimpeded. Maybe then it can be His work and His glory in a very literal sense.”

WOW. I closed with this video that was created with pieces of this same talk. Go grab a tissue and make sure you watch it. Every time I watched it as I prepared for my lesson (and learned to download YouTube videos and burn them to DVD ... YES!) I was overwhelmed by the sense that I am doing better than I think I am. The Lord is there to carry us through the challenges as long as we will rely on him. Elder Holland also said, "if you try your best to be the best parent you can be, you will have done all that a human being can do and all that God expects you to do." Thank goodness.