What Paul said.

Paul said to the Romans:

"...We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation
worketh patience;
and patience, experience;
and experience, hope."

Today we had an excellent speaker at church talk about experience. He said our trials give us experience. Well, I knew this already. So did you. But the revelation came when he quoted Paul, in the scripture above (Rom. 5:3-4).

The goal in this life is to gain experience. When we have the knowledge that comes from experiencing and overcoming trials for ourselves, we gain hope, that vision of brightness that puts everything in its proper perspective.

It is amazing to me how ridiculously easy it is to loose sight of that proper perspective. Which, then sometimes necessitates trials to bring about the patience and experience that will return that hope, that perspective.

I feel, as a mother, that often I am walking a thin line. There are so many important decisions that I must make for my children and I fear that I don't have the experience I need to make the best decisions for them. For each of them. I feel myself loosing grasp, sometimes, of the hope and perspective I need to give my children I've sought out many, many books of respectable, learned and experienced educators, psychiatrist, and parents searching for the right help for my family's quirks and trials. I'm not saying I haven't learned good things from them, but often the messages were conflicting and I ended up feeling even more confused about what was right for my family and specific children.

I remember reading in the scriptures about how we are to pray over everything, "our flocks and fields," and I thought, "that means all of our decisions. Every single one."

And this light bulb went off and I had such an incredible feeling of empowerment. I realized that I don't need other people to make these important decisions for me. I can make them myself. I can make them with the Lord's help and feel confident that I'm doing the right thing. And that's really the key. Once we have that confirmation from the Lord we can be confident and not easily swayed.

Which is HARD. It's hard not to be swayed when people, who have more degrees and experience, or the over-powering media, and even those you love, all have opinions on the matter. It takes a lot of faith and trust. The choices I make for my family might not be right for your family, and visa versa.

And that's ok.

I believe every mother has the right to receive revelation for her family and should seek it in earnest every day. Even seemingly trivial things like, whether or not to sign up for Karate or to buy a certain video game can be brought before the Lord.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks I face is when I begin to doubt my significance as a mother. Why do I doubt? Well, because mopping the floor and wiping bums just doesn't register with the world as being significant. We know that motherhood is not insignificant. The future of the whole world learns at our feet.

And they will go through tribulations someday. Think how different the world would be if everyone was taught to find the good in their tribulations and to value the experience.

Well, my friends, I still have a long way to go before I can say I "glory" in my tribulations, but this gave me lots to think about today.