I snatched the opportunity to check out the Provo City Center Temple yesterday after some baseball games in the area. I had never even seen the building when it was the Tabernacle so all of it was a completely new sight to me. I delighted in everything about it, but when I got to the particular part of the grounds that's in the photo above, I felt it summed up all that life is really about. The knowledge, blessings, and all that's eternal in the temple, standing firm, pointing to heaven and higher purpose; families--a father and a mother as co-creators with God, striving to pattern their parenting after our celestial parents, nurturing and providing for children to help them along their way, with the gospel of Jesus Christ ever in the picture to support the family and bind it together; even the tulips, representing in my mind the personal growth and beauty of each individual as he or she travels through mortality from one stage of life to the next, line upon line, one step at a time on to eternity. All together the image forms a progression from the worth and birth of an individual soul to the forming, service, and growth of families, on to eternal realms.
At the close of this Mother's Day I want to shout about the joy that comes from being a wife and mother and making those roles the focus of my life. Some would say I've failed to develop or make something of my life or that I've wasted my potential. My parents have had occasion to run into old high school principals or teachers of mine who knew and supported me well and had great expectations for me and my future. Upon inquiry, my parents have shared where and I am and what I'm going--raising my children--and these people have been disappointed. I am thus disappointed; not because I think I've let anyone down but because it saddens me that there isn't more value placed on motherhood and homemaking. Being a mother hasn't hindered me--it's given me wings. I haven't failed to reach my potential; on the contrary, being a mother has helped me develop in more ways and in quicker time than anything else I might have chosen to be or do, and those ways are lasting and essential. My life is filled with purpose. Being a mother is the greatest thing I've ever done or ever will do in time and all eternity.
