Even the Best Decisions Can Be Hard to Live With

It's November. This is the month I've been both pushing to get to, seeing it as a summit, and also the month I've been dreading to come, a little sad about the view from the top once reached. It has been a full and busy fall with lots of plans and goals as well as many unexpected surprises. I've backed way off the blogging in an effort to spend time where it really needed to be spent this autumn. And now November is here. Today we dropped off our newest missionary at the Provo MTC and I'm feeling so many emotions I just can't give words to them all. Let's just say that I left a part of my heart in Provo and I'm really feeling it tonight. Even though this is the best decision my son could possibly have made and I am so proud, pleased and full of hope, faith, and gratitude, it's still a little hard to live with it.

As the calendar days have passed I've been looking forward to listening to my November Playlist. After arriving home from the MTC and feeling the need for some grace in my thoughts, I put on David Tolk's appropriately named album Grace which is my newest November Playlist addition. 

The music was soothing and filling and then finally releasing. "I Need Thee Every Hour" broke the dam and I had a good, hard, mournful, grateful, prayerful cry.

Raising children is something of a paradox. You nurture and nourish, teach and train, love and lead, and give your whole soul to helping these children of God realize and reach their potential only to feel a little bit sad when they actually do. Wait. Success brings sadness? 

It's just that you love these children so much and you love being a mother so much that you'd gladly hit replay and go through everything over and over again so you could hold on to every happy, hard, sweet, trying, silly, bewildering, wonderful moment with these amazing people you've been blessed to bring into the world and hold hands with.

Thank God for motherhood! The privilege! The challenge! The journey! The joy!

Happy November.