A Cup Of Living Water Today ~

Yesterday for various reasons, I had my three wonderful daughters call me. Each had their own concerns and life events to share. I know that they are dear daughters of our Heavenly Father and I have the privilege of being their earthly Mother. The moments of conversation were like manna to my soul. My youngest daughter was struggling with a sad moment in her life and we talked of faith, trust, the will of the Father and clinging to her testimony.  It is always a joy to hear from your children as they express their testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and their faith in him. I also feel blessed that I have three wonderful son's, son in laws and three daughter in laws.
I truly miss all of my children, grandchildren. We see our three sons and their families  fairly often. However, all three of our daughters live much further a way. This past year we were able to attend the baptisms of four of our granddaughters in Idaho, Missouri and Washington. Tomorrow we are leaving to attend the baptism for our granddaughter that lives in South Dakota.
Since moving back to Utah, most of my friends have all of their children near and I feel they are so blessed. I am always so excited to go and be with my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.They truly bring great happiness into my life.
After these phone calls I started to reflect on some of my feelings about myself as a mother. I do know that I wasn't the best of mothers. I made many mistakes and wish that I had managed events differently. When our children where young, we had many struggles. We lived in Nevada for 7 years and during that time I needed to supplement our income. We had lost a home and my husband his job and thus we moved to Nevada for a new job. These years are what I call our Wilderness years.  We were truly out in the temporal desert; having temporal difficulties.There was so many great lessons that we learned as we struggled through those years. I regret  that I needed to work at the time. My children were pre-teen and teenagers; so it was a rough era for raising our children. I also had health issues which didn't help our situation. Funds were low so we weren't able to take fun family vacations or do very many other family activities. Taking six children to any event that cost money was all most non existent. Our day to day existence was trying. We clung to our faith and moved forward but in the meantime there were many parenting issues and it was hard.
Through it all I do feel deep gratitude for each of my children. They remained strong and true to our faith regardless of our lack of time together and parenting minutes. We worked hard to follow the Prophet in his counsel on raising children; but we still fell short in many ways.I know that I am not alone in feeling sad about not having the ideal family times. For many years I didn't really enjoy Mother's Day. Now in this age I can see things as they were in a different perspective. 
After having some of these thoughts and memories flow into my mind; I decided to pray for some comfort today. I always pray everyday to be a better mother, grandmother and great grandmother.
I have been reading a book entitled; "Doing What We Came To Do - Living A Life Of Love" by Ardeth G. Kapp. So today as I was reading this book by Ardeth Kapp; my prayers were answered. She told of one experience with her own mother that made all the difference in my feelings today. Here are Sister Kapp's thoughts: "The last Mother's Day before my mom passed away, as I was pushing her in her wheelchair into the chapel, she whispered, half to herself but loud enough for me to hear, "I never liked Mother's Day. It always reminds me of all the things I didn't do as a mother." Wanting to ease her mind, I leaned over and whispered, "Mom, I don't think you did so badly." She smiled.
So I will smile knowing that I did the best I could do in the circumstances that we were in. As parents we tried to do what we knew was right at the time. We stayed true to our beliefs and had many spiritual experiences also during our wilderness journey in Nevada.
 In the mist of our parenting years, we do receive great joy into our lives each time we are with our children. We schedule reunions every two years in an attempt to keep our family bonds strong. Each of our children are dear to us, our love for them is infinite and the joy they all bring into our lives is priceless. 
Some thoughts taken from the Book entitled: Temple Worship - 20 Truths That Will Bless Your Life by Andrew C. Skinner; I have paraphrased a couple of thoughts from him: 
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we believe in Eternal families. We believe our happiness in the life to come will be eternal because the family continues" He then quoted President Joseph Fielding Smith as he taught great truths about the nature of families. President Smith said: "Not only was marriage instituted by the Lord to endure eternally, but it also naturally follows that the same is true of the family. ...Could it ever be heaven without family? No, the family is the unit in the Kingdom of God...We believe that the family will go on. I get a great deal of comfort out of the thought that if I am faithful and worthy of an exaltation, my father will be my father, and I will be subject to him as his son through all eternity; that I will recognize and know my mother and she will be my mother in all eternity; and my brothers and sisters will be my brothers and sisters for all eternity; and that my children and my wife will be mine in eternity. I don't know how some other people feel, but that is a glorious thought to me.

I think this is such a lovely thought. So I will tell all my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren that we must love one another, cling to our faith, press forward with a steadfastness in Christ and endure the trials of life. I know the promise is true that if they will nurture those loving relationships with in their own families and also with their siblings they will  feel the arms of the Savior encircle them within the arms of his love; I know this to be true. My pleading prayer was answered as my cup of Living Water was filled today.

PS. My sweet youngest daughter had a miscarriage last week. She is such a faithful, loving young woman. The past two years she has had many health issues and has so wanted to have another baby. She has been so sad about this; but recognizes that she needs to accept God's will for her. She wrote a very lovely post on her feelings, you can read it here:
http://asmallmoment.blogspot.com/2012/03/waiting-upon-lord.html