Sore Eyes

I posted this a long time ago but I thought I'd have it posted again for the sake of my sleep deprivied eyes. Two kids and a c-section= long days and nights. I should be sleeping now but instead I'm too tired to sleep. My head hurts and if I move my eyes in any direction they ache. I remeber feeling that this was so hard for the first year with Joshua...I guess I just have to keep pushing forward through the lack of sleep. I know it's worth it but right now my physical body is not keeping up with the demands...

Why Motherhood is so hard...
Most of my friends now are becoming young mothers. We gave up future opportunities to try and tackle the unconquerable spirit of children. I have found it to be hard and have posted about how it is hard, but also how I would not change any of it. I love my son because he is me…flesh of my flesh. I love watching him sleep, love chasing him down everywhere, and love dancing with him to music.

But the truth is that, this is the most work I have ever done. It is hard. Motherhood requires so much patience, long suffering, and enduring. I have wrestled with the idea of why people did not tell me this? Why do they not talk about it? How do they survive it? Am I a weaker person because I seem to crack weekly and find this so hard?

Nope. I am not weak. This is the hardest work you can do in this life because it deals with the Law of Increasing Returns. I have come across several talks by the brethren of the church and have found they do recognize how hard it is to be a mother. They do give us approbation for our efforts and ask that we remain faithful to the end. This principle came from a book by President Eyring that I have been reading. Here is the principle explained and I hope you take some comfort from it. I know it is long, but I promise it will be worth it.

“The simple fact is that there is a God who wants us to have faith in him. He knows that to strengthen faith we must use it. And so He gives us the chance to use it by letting some of the spiritual rewards we want most be delayed. Instead of first efforts yielding returns with a steady decline, it’s the reverse. First efforts, seem to yield little. And then the rewards begin, perhaps much later to grow and grow.

Most of us need encouragement to work and wait for rewards…[you should] focus your eyes on the blessing you are getting now, while you wait. ..Some results may be delayed to allow you to strengthen your faith. But other blessings come immediately. And King Benjamin valued those so highly compared to what we give that he said, Mark your whole bill ‘Paid in full.’ I know that’s hard to do if you are struggling under a heavy load. It’s easy to see your load and to pine for the delayed rewards. But King Benjamin taught us that we’re already abundantly paid, both with free gifts—such as life, for which we have done nothing—and with other blessing which have followed immediately upon our faithful service.

This was back ground information for you so you can understand the story and the juicy details.

“I’m the guy who sits on the floor when she says, ‘you sit here.’ I’ll tell you something. All she has to do is hand me those shoes one time and then say, ‘let me kiss your head, and you can mark anything owed me on the [parental]account, ‘paid in full.’

I recognize that’s easy for a father to say. Mothers invest so much more in children that a kiss from a little girl still leaves a lot for the future. Men and women working outside the home deal mostly with early crops and with the law of diminishing returns. In the home they spend far more on late crops and the law of increasing returns. It is important to remember that. It could help a woman understand why arguments for a career and little time spent rearing children are so tempting. And it might help a man understand why a child trampling on the teachings of the home may tear at his wife even more than at him. His paycheck comes often. Hers may come a few times in her life. And now perhaps, because of the choice of a child, one check may not come at all.

But for men and women, obsessed as they should be with the eternal results that take so long, it helps to see the blessing already in hand. The prettiest flowers I’ve ever seen were among the rocks near the tops of mountains. That must have been partly because I worked so hard to get there—for something else—and then, suddenly, there they were. By forcing yourself to look at them, at the blessing around you, it will be easy to do what King Benjamin suggested: “O how you ought to thank your Heavenly King! [Mosiah 2:19].” ((Because He First Loved Us, President Eyring, [107-108]).

There you have it. Why motherhood is so hard. I hope that my young friends look for those ‘paid in full’ account moments. I know that as I have looked for those moments my job as a mother has been much easier. I try and find those moments daily and then, the work does not seem so hard. The days are not so long and the moments are beyond precious.