It seems through phases of life we are always preparing for what is coming next. Elementary school gets you ready for what you will learn in Junior High. Which then leads to what's going on in High School. And you hope the High School expriences you had help you adjust into the highly challenging acedemic world of college and adult responsibilities. Those then prepare you for some sort of respectable career of choice or circumstance. Looking back I can see these steps in my life led me to each next step and how they connected and prepared me. Some transitions went more smoothly than others.
I remember transitioning from jobs of circumstance (to pay bills) into a job in the field I longer for and aimed to be part of: Human Resources. I remember the feeling of traveling to a site in another location and being trusted with projects and a company credit card and felt my wings extend to meet the challenges I had wished to be in a place to handle. I remember my smile on my face and in my gut when I had those moments in my career. The gratitude for the hard work and, in some instances, long suffering that finally led me to my ideal place. It felt good to look back and know it was worth it.
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My transition from career life to non-working mom did not leave me feeling as though I was very prepared. I looked back and found few steps that led me there. I felt stranded. Confused. Lost. Alone. I wondered what the point of all those milestones in education and career were for when I would step away from them (possibly forever?) to sling diapers and vaccuum carpet.
I have since learned parenthood is a lot of learning on the job and the more children you have the more prepared you feel with each one. It's almost like the experiences you learn with your first child are a fast forward version of the my former education path and parenting teens must be the career part of parenthood. The things I am learning now with them are preparing me for how to teach them in older years as I understand their personalities and interests more as time goes on.
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I remember when I was researching the Mormon doctrine as a young adult one of the main questions I kept running through my mind as I was pondering the things I was learning and praying a lot was this : Is this how I want to raise my future posterity? I did not take the decision to change my religion lightly. By any means.
Today my 6 year old son stood in the front of a room filled with other children (hard for him!). He read The First Article of Faith. And then he sat back down in his assigned seat in the front of the room (hard for him!). As he breathed the words into the microphone I had another moment where I was smiling on the outside and on the inside. He read: We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
Our kids are living a religion we have chose to teach them. I was grateful today for the day I chose to be baptized and began the growth of my own testimony so I could lead my future children (along with my husband) the way we think is best for them. I knew as Zane read those words he understood what he was reading and he believed what he was saying in his heart.
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It's such a great feeling to make a plan and see it happening after what feels like a long time of labor to see the results shine and happening. Those feelings were first felt for me in my career after weary schooling and now in parenting in little moments sprinkled out and visible on days I least expect it. We have family scripture study and it's hard not to be frustrated as the kids are a circus, but I know like these examples, it will pay off and there will be a day or moment we will see it.
