I am a mother of four beautiful children. Three girls and one boy. They keep me busy and bring great joy and growth to my life, but that joy generally doesn’t come until after some hardship.

I think of when I first found out I was pregnant with our eldest daughter, Emma. Let me take you back to early October of 2015:

Christian(my wonderful husband) and I had been married for 2 months. We had planned to wait a little bit(maybe a year or so) before we started thinking about getting pregnant. We felt good about this decision for it would give us time to get to know each other a little bit more before we turned our focus fully over to our children. We knew that the Lord had commanded us to mulitly and replenish the earth, as he did Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. We took this very seriously for we truly desire to please the Lord.

Well, we were given tickets to the October General Conference(A large gathering of people who are learning more about how to follow the Savior)(It is located in Salt Lake City). We attended the Saturday Afternoon session and during this session there were at least two talks on Motherhood. The first being from Elder Robert D. Hales. It was called “Meeting the Challenges of Today’s World”. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/10/meeting-the-challenges-of-todays-world?lang=eng A little quote from this talk says: “The choices you make-mission, education, marriage, career, and service in the Church will shape your eternal destiny.” This talk got me thinking about what my focus needed to be on in my life at that time. I had chosen to get married and I was going to school, so now what…?

The next talk was from Elder Holland. It was called “Behold Thy Mother”. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/10/behold-thy-mother?lang=eng A short quote from this talk: “No love in mortality comes closer to apporximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child.”

I think you can see where this is going. Christian and I both left this conference with the Holy Ghost prompting us to start our family as soon as we could. We went home and we prayed about this and felt like we needed to start trying to have a child. Funny thing about this was, I found out the next week that I was already pregnant!

The Lord was just telling us to move forward so that when we found out we were preganant we new it was the right thing. We were so excited, but then of course pregnancy is not always easy. My pregnancy with Emma was tough just becuase I felt nauseous from about 10 weeks to 25 weeks, but looking back my pregnancy with her was also my easiest out of all my pregnancys. I will go more into this another time.

The reason I share this story is to say that this life is meant to test our endurance. If we endure it well we shall be exalted on high. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/121.7-8?

Heck, while writing this my two year that is potty training decided to poop on the bathroom floor instead of her potty. I had to stop and clean that all up. Let’s just say I’m grateful for the chance to endure potty training because I know the outcome.

He wants us to return to him and the only way to return is to endure the trials here on earth so that we can become stronger. I have expereinced many trials and I want to share them here, but not just my trials, the blessings that come after eduring through those trials. The Lord always gives promised blessings as we strive to follow Him the best we can.

So, this is the Why for this blog. I am going to share about lifes trials whether that be with motherhood(cleaning, cooking, cleaning up poop), being a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints(the people, your testimony), other peoples choices, etc. Life is full of hardship but it is also full of JOY!

Thanks for reading. I hope you will respond if you are prompted to do so. I love to hear from others as well, about the joy that came from enduring through a trial. It strengthens me as well.

I will plan to post weekly at least, if not more.

Have a wonderful week!