Sunday, April 17, 2011

Motherhood - Chapter 13 - Charity

My new job at church is teaching the women's class one Sunday each month. It is a great job. One of my favorite for sure. Today was my first lesson as a teacher and not just subbing for an a teacher. The topic was charity.

My focus for the lesson was more about developing a charitable heart (especially towards hard to love people or people who have hurt you) rather than doing charitable deeds. Though certainly doing charitable deeds can help us develop more charitable hearts.

So what does this have to do with motherhood for my "motherhood" series? Well I have been thinking a great deal about charity and how to find the love in your heart for people who are hard to love or who have hurt you and one thing I keep coming back to is how sometimes our children act "hard to love" and sometimes they hurt us but as far as I have experienced, this does not make me love them any less.

So I guess I am realizing that mother love is a pure form of charity. And maybe if I can look at others with "motherly" eyes or as the Savior sees them, I can find more pure charity for others even those who are hard to love.

What a great blessing it is to be a mother! How amazing that the Lord allows us to have this divine experience of parenting to teach us how to love and give us experience that will help us become more like Him. It is a wonderful thing. One I wish for all people. I pray for those struggling to become parents. I pray that one way or another they will be blessed with this amazing experience called parenthood. It really does stretch you and make you grow in such beautiful ways.

And I pray that I can expand the lessons I have learned and the love I have developed beyond my own family and apply them more fully in my relationships to everyone in the human family.