Faith In Motherhood

I found myself sitting in Sacrament meeting today – well less sitting and more wrestling with Jesse and Elizabeth while they tried to either poke each other’s eyes out or pull one another’s hair– wondering if there would ever be a time where I would be able to sit and listen to the talks, the music, even the prayers without having to whisper sharply to one of the children to stop biting each other or to sit and be reverent.
I remember thinking that I’d much rather be home, enjoying the moments that come with Saturday and Sunday mornings – time where the kids can be themselves, free of restrictions and reverence requirements.  Suddenly I felt a twinge of guilt.  I wanted to be home – not sitting in this Sacrament meeting – in fact, in this particular moment anywhere away from this pew, this moment – would have been bliss.
I felt similarly struck as I sat through Sunday School in the foyer with Alison on my lap crying that she doesn’t want to go to Nursery with the occasional “I DON'T WANT TO” at the top of her lungs for added emphasis.
I often wonder if it’s a crisis of faith, a lack of lessons learned in my youth, on some days I even wonder if my own testimony might be in question.  What kind of person am I that there are times that church is the last place I want to be?  I have spent countless hours and quiet moments (when they could be found) soul searching, in moments of quiet prayer, in scripture study.  I’ve determined one thing.  My faith, my testimony are very much in tact.  I know the Gospel is true.   I have a testimony in the power of prayer and in the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.  I know Joseph Smith is a prophet, and Thomas S. Monson is one today.  I have no doubts in the power of the Priesthood.  Why then these feelings?
I think I simply become overwhelmed.
Every Sunday I am reminded of these five precious (and precousious) children that I am responsible for.  I am responsible for their safety. I am responsible for their health.  I am responsible for their spiritual fulfillment.  Me.  How I teach them and the environment I give them is going to directly affect their future and their eternity.

"We shall prosper and build up Zion upon the earth; for this is our mission, and the work of your mothers and daughters of Zion—the mothers now, and by and by the daughters, who will, in turn, be mothers in Israel. Great responsibility rests upon you. Upon you depend the training and the direction of the thoughts and the inspiration of the hearts of your children, for they drink into the spirit of their mothers, and the influence of the mother over the children is the most enduring impression that can be made. There is nothing so imperishable as the influence of the mother; that is when she is good and has the spirit of the Gospel in her heart, and she has brought up her children in the way they should go." – Joseph F Smith

That is a lot to think about.
That is a lot to put on a woman.
That is a lot for me.
However:

“You women, be good women, be good mothers. Be kind and gracious and generous. Strengthen your children with your faith and your testimony. Lift them up. Help them to walk through the troubled ways of the world as they grow in this very difficult age. Support, sustain, uphold, and bless your husbands with your love and your encouragement; and the Lord will bless you.” – Gordon B Hinkley

The Lord Will Bless You.
He has, he does and he will continue to.
And that is what gets me through another day, another meeting, another week sitting in the foyer.