Jenny - The Divine Roll of Motherhood

Hi, my name is Jenny! I am a wife and mother of 3 beautiful kids. I LOVE being a mom! However, the journey of starting a family isn't for the faint of heart!

My husband and I believed it was time and started trying for a baby in October of 2009. Come December it seemed like everyone was expecting except for us.

Living in a college apartment complex full of newly weds pregnant bellies surrounded me. In February we took our first test that showed positive, and were teary with excitement, only to miscarry about a week later. In July we were pregnant again, and for the second time it was gone. Going through something as devastating as miscarriage was even harder the second time around, and I was led to question...What are we doing wrong? Isn't this a righteous desire? Aren't we ready?

I just kept looking for the lesson in all of the pain, and longing. The lessons learned continue to carry me through the struggles of motherhood.

Sometimes life hurts, but that's what we are here to experience. Some trials are simply to give us a taste of disappointment, and failure. We are here to become more Christ-like and Christ suffered all things. It always could be worse, and it may just get worse so count your blessings, and be prepared with a firm foundation. The Lord puts people in our lives for a reason, so many friends and family who had been through the same and much worse reached out with love and encouragement. The Lord answers our prayers in His time, and His timing is perfect. And as always we need to focus on the things that we can change in our lives, instead of dwelling on what we have no power over.

One year after our journey to parenthood began we found out we were expecting again and this time it was promisingly-terribly different. Just a couple of days after the positive test I started throwing up and couldn’t seem to stop.Pregnancy felt a lot more like being poisoned than I had ever imagined.

As a person who had experienced almost perfect health for most of my life feeling so sick for so long was devastating. The medicine kept me alive but I had no quality of life, sleep was my only escape. I felt judged by family and friends assuming that they judged me to be a lazy wimp. I couldn’t do any of the things that made me, me and imagined that my husband regretted his choice in a wife. Why would such a righteous desire continue to be so challenging? How could motherhood even be worth it?

One night after a particularly sick day I prayed telling Heavenly Father that I’d rather die than feel this way any longer. Immediately I felt love pour over me, and angels, surround me.

It’s easy in hard moments to think that we will be in that dark place forever, but if we continue to seek light the light will come.

When I look back at every trial I’ve been faced with I can see that God is in the details of my life. My struggles through pregnancy prepared me for motherhood in a way nothing else could have. I know that if I hadn’t struggled to get pregnant I wouldn’t have felt that desperate longing for a child that kept me going through a challenging pregnancy. The great sacrifice of my physical and emotional health those 9 months made me treasure every moment with my son. Always in awe of the miracle he was. I learned how to rely on my Heavenly Father in a more constant way and gained a testimony of angels on the other side who are there to help us along. I gained empathy for others who struggle longer and harder than I was asked to. The sacrifices made continue to teach me that motherhood is not a given in this life but a beautiful blessing from God, not something keeping me from living my life, but what I was given life for.

The love that fills my heart the moment I hold my new baby is instantaneous, however I found that finding my identity as a mother did not come as easy.

Everyone from strangers at the store, to great aunt Martha seemed to have opinions on how I should be doing my job.

As I navigated my new life full of seemingly mundane tasks that come with caring for a child I came across an article on motherhood that changed my outlook forever. It talked about the amazing artists who labored for a lifetime on just one wall of the many famous cathedrals in Europe, making sure that every detail was perfect. This was backbreaking work focused on details that few would ever appreciate or even see up close. But they did it as a sign of devotion to God.Their great works a sign of their love for Him.

As I took this attitude to heart my work as a mother took on new meaning, I started to see being a Mom as my own life’s work and the ultimate way I could show my love and devotion to God.