Holiday...celebrate...

Today is Mother's Day. And my 6 year anniversary. Whoa.

So, here comes the huge post about how amazing my husband is, how being a mother is the easiest way to refine yourself and grow, and how fulfilling it is, how I can't imagine myself anywhere else in life. I could easily write the huge list of everything I love about them.

But luckily I tell them all the time, as I'm falling asleep next to my husband or as my kids are eating their breakfast. So I don't have it welling up inside of me.

What I am pondering today is gratitude.

For the last year, I've pondered all sorts of things. Or more like, they haunted me. As I chased around a one year old, tried to keep my kids entertained endlessly, I felt stretched thin, and the conclusion for all my thoughts was- I can't do it with another kid. yet.

Then another few months pass, I've grown into mothering two children, and I felt ready.

And then I get pregnant, only to have it end before the first appointment. As hard as that sounds, it wasn't that hard. It was a hiccup in my plans, it felt like nothing more.

After almost a year of waiting for a child to come, I pondered whether I thought I was ready, but Heavenly Father didn't think so.

I pondered if I was being tested for patience.
I pondered if I was being given a break I wouldn't give myself.
I pondered if I was going to wait years instead of months for another child.
I pondered if my family was complete.

And finally I stopped planning and pondering. Like last week. Out of the blue, I realized I'd stopped pleading with the Lord in my prayers to know why. I'd stopped seeing myself as deprived, wanting an explanation.

And I'd started looking at my children as gifts to me. Not something I earned, or I decided upon, or I made happen. I started seeing them as gifts from my Heavenly Father. And I started seeing them as complete, my family as complete, with or without another child.

And that's a good place to be on Mother's Day.