Happy Mother's Day

My Mother's Day treasures.

Today I had to got to speak in church. ;) Last Sunday I got a call from a member of the Bishopric asking me to speak on Mother’s Day. Oh, and by the way, you’ll be speaking with Elder Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I think my palms started to immediately sweat and my heart started to race. Of course I was willing, but I was terrified! I hung up the phone, walked straight into my closet and dropped to my knees and started praying. I felt totally inadequate. I am faithful. I love the Lord. I love the Gospel. But I am a slacker. I am uneducated, untrained and totally unqualified! But I told the Lord I was humble and willing to do whatever He needed me to do.

I spent the week praying and fasting and praying and studying and praying and reading and going to the temple. I actually had a wonderful week of spiritual feasting, but I still was unsure of what I should talk about. Even on Saturday night! Of course, I was stressed, but I was calm. We ended up staying out late on Saturday night sitting in our car talking to the Vances and an old friend who was going through a really difficult time. I had the thought of needing to get home and work on my talk but I had a stronger feeling that this was where I needed to be. Comforting and talking to a friend in need. I needed to focus on this relationship and this person rather than home with my laptop open trying to write my talk. I was able to completely focus on the conversation and not be distracted by any anxiety about my talk the next day despite not having it all written out yet. I had faith that it would all work out. Jeff and Adam had been telling me all weekend: the hard work is done; you’ll know what you should say.

Mothers Day morning while Jeff and the kids prepared an amazing omelet breakfast in bed for me, I typed away and things did slowly come together. I gathered enough thoughts to have a few pages written. I felt like I had focused on the process and trying to learn and prepare what the Lord would have me say, the outcome would be okay. And even if it wasn’t, I had done my best.

       This is the talk that I gave:

I’m not a hugger. You know how some people are just huggers. They love to hug. They look for opportunities to hug. And when they hug you, they pull you in close and fully embrace you. I’m more of a hand-shaker. Or maybe I will pat someone on the back. Or sometimes I might even go all out and do the side-hug. But I’ve never really been a hugger. When my children were born, it became easier to hug and squeeze those little ones. When they would come running to me with their arms open I would scoop them up and hug them tight. When they were tired, they would rest their little heads on my shoulders and I would hold them close. I noticed, though, that as they got older, I started to go back to my non-hugging ways. A few years ago I made a conscious effort to hug each one of my kids every single day. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it has helped me to be more nurturing and loving to my kids and those around me.

When we nurture others, we build our families, our relationships and the Kingdom of God.To nurture means to care for, to encourage the growth and development of. When we care for and encourage the growth and development of others, we build strong relationships and emulate the Savior. To me, nurturing means focusing on relationships rather than outcomes.
It’s easy to focus on outcomes. Outcomes are often how we measure success or failure. Outcomes validate our efforts. Outcomes give us recognition and makes us feel like we have accomplished something. But the real success is in our efforts and in our relationships.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is often how I interact with my kids daily. After a quick hug and some chit chat about the day, I move right on to the list. “Is your homework done? Have you done your chores? You need to pick up your room. Let’s look at skyward. You need to practice the piano. Hurry up, we have to get you to practice.” Etc. I often focus on the outcomes of a clean house, good grades, keeping commitments to teams and developing talents. While all of those are good things, these interactions are not building strong relationships. My efforts are focused on producing good outcomes, rather than on building meaningful relationships.

One night during a particularly difficult semester my daughter finally said to me, “Mom, I feel like you only talk to me about my grades. I feel like that’s the most important thing to you: if I get good grades.” It was a bit of a shock to me because that’s sincerely not how I feel. Of course I care much more about her as a person, than her GPA. But I realized that my words and my interactions were focused on outcomes and not on nurturing her as a person and as a child of God. I needed to redirect my interactions and help her to feel that I cared about her way beyond her grades or messy room or anything. She needed to know and I needed to show that my love for her was unconditional. I hugged her close for several minutes and told her how much I loved her and told her that I cared more about her being a good, kind and loving person (which she absolutely is) than any report card. I told her all of the wonderful things I loved about her and how much she meant to me and that I would love her no matter what. She taught me a valuable lesson in that late night talk. Since then I have tried to connect more with her and really talk to her and really care sincerely about what she is experiencing daily. I find that the more I make time for connecting with her in my life, the better and more fulfilling our relationship is. The more I put down my own distractions (like my phone, my hobbies, my chores) and “look up,” the more I can connect with those around me.

When we focus on building loving, strong relationships with our families and those around us, rather than outcomes, we are happier.

In a 75 year long study on Happiness by Harvard University, researchers found that happiness comes from good relationships. The main finding of this landmark study was that the “warmth of relationships throughout life have the greatest positive impact on ‘life satisfaction.’” Or as the director of the study said:  “Happiness is love and good relationships keep us happier and healthier.”

Nurturing others can build our families and the Kingdom of God. Every one of us has opportunities to nurture all around us. Young or old, male or female, shy or gregarious, we can all nurture others. Remember that to nurture means to care for and encourage growth: to love them. We can nurture our siblings, our parents, our friends. We can nurture as visiting and home teachers, as Primary and Youth leaders. We can nurture co-workers and even bosses.

I loved Sister Neil F Marriott’s talk from General Women’s Conference this Spring. She said,
“Mothers literally make room in their bodies to nurture an unborn baby—and hopefully a place in their hearts as they raise them—but nurturing is not limited to bearing children. Eve was called a “mother” before she had children. I believe that “to mother” means “to give life.” Think of the many ways you give life. It could mean giving emotional life to the hopeless or spiritual life to the doubter. With the help of the Holy Ghost, we can create an emotionally healing place for the discriminated against, the rejected, and the stranger. In these tender yet powerful ways, we build the kingdom of God. Sisters, all of us came to earth with these life-giving, nurturing, maternal gifts because that is God’s plan.”

I am so grateful to be a mother. It is the most difficult and most rewarding thing I have ever done. I am so grateful to have this opportunity to speak today. I hope that all of you know that you are enough. It’s easy to make the laundry list of the things you are not doing enough of or good enough at. This week I have had many moments of feeling ‘not enough.’ Especially as I have thought about preparing for this talk. What can I say to the women of our ward? All of you are so amazing and inspiring to me. I could easily turn inward and tell myself all of the things I need to be doing better at or all of the outcomes in my life that I wish were different. But I feel the love of my Savior as I push those thoughts aside and think about reaching out and nurturing others. As I think about going home and fully embracing each of my children, looking them in the eyes and telling them I love them. When I forget about making sure the house is clean for company or what we need to do to get dinner ready tonight or if my kids have their homework done for the week and instead I focus on just enjoying being with my family, my heart is opened and my love increases. I feel God’s love for me and His love for them. And I am happier and our family is happier. I love this quote by President Hinckley, “Never forget that these little ones are the sons and daughters of God and that yours is a custodial relationship to them, that He was a parent before you were parents and that He has not relinquished His parental rights or interest in these His little ones. … Rear your children in love, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Take care of your little ones. Welcome them into your homes, and nurture and love them with all of your hearts. They may do, in the years that come, some things you would not want them to do, but be patient, be patient. You have not failed as long as you have tried”

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.


Some thoughts after my talk:

You know how you always think of more things you should have said as soon as you sit down. Well, I figured I might as well make a few notes now just for funsies.

One thing I wished I would have emphasized is that how when we focus on building loving relationships over producing good outcomes, we will likely get good outcomes! But when we focus on producing good outcomes over building loving relationships, you may sacrifice a relationship and still not get good outcomes.

I also should have pointed out that we can’t just forget about the outcomes. We need to teach kids to be responsible and work hard. They need to do their chores, homework and other responsibilities they have committed to. It is important to have goals and ambition and work hard to accomplish those goals. But it is easier to teach and encourage growth and development when it is coupled with love.

During our third hour today, Elder Rasband had a “Face to Face” with just our youth. He shared a great story about when they were mission presidents in New York and how they felt like obedience was waning in their mission. Missionaries were being lax in their study, not getting up on time, teaching, etc. and baptisms were declining. Elder Rasband said they spent the next few months hammering obedience to the missionaries every chance they got. He was still not seeing the results. His wife suggested that they teach about the Savior and help the missionaries gain a greater understanding of the Savior and His life and teachings and forget about teaching obedience. She felt that if they had a greater love for the Savior, they would want to be more obedient. So they did just that. They had every missionary stop studying whatever they were studying for personal study, companionship study, district/zone conferences and go through all 57 sub topics of Jesus Christ in the Topical Guide. They didn’t talk about obedience at all. They did this for 3 months and I’m sure you can imagine what happened. Faith increased. Love for the Savior increased. And obedience increased. Focusing on relationships, specifically the missionaries’ personal relationship with the Savior, produced better outcomes than focusing on outcomes.

I also wanted to add that this idea of focusing on relationships over outcomes, highlights the differences between “ministering” and “administering.” Ministering focuses on people, relationships, bringing others to God and building loving relationships. Ministering is leaving the 99 and going after the 1. Administering focuses on programs, percentages, delegating and making sure things run smoothly. Both need to happen in order for wards, auxiliaries and even families to work. But, they are more effective and satisfying when we focus more on ministering rather than administering. Administering is the body and ministering is the soul. You still need both, but the soul is more meaningful.

I think the Savior focused more on relationships than outcomes. There are countless examples in the scriptures from His own actions and from the parables He taught.