I rejoice in my children

A friend of mine recently asked a few women she knows to write about how they rejoice in their children. In a moment of something, inspiration maybe, she included me on her list. An odd request for a woman without children, but an assignment I was interested in fulfilling. If anything I was curious to see what would come out of my head. So this morning I sat down and briefly wrote out how I rejoice in my children. I apologize to my friend (should she read this) that it is going up on my own blog before she gets a chance to post it on hers. Hopefully she forgives me. Thankfully, I don't think we have the same readers. So, for the sake of my family and other miscellaneous people, here is how I rejoice in children.

The Lord has a sense of humor. Of this I am most positive. For most of my teenage years and into my early twenties I was determined I did not want children. I would hate them and they would surely hate me. I just knew it. But, as in most things in life, age matured me enough to see the folly of my youthful ideas. Maybe I did want children after all. So when I got married at the ripe old age of 26, I thought because I waited "so long" to get married, and because I came from very fertile stock, children would come as easily for me as they did for my parents and siblings.

Now 4+ years in, I still wait on the Lord and His timing, all the while rejoicing in my promised children. As such I go to appointment after appointment, subjecting my body, my time, and my money to countless exams, blood work, and hospital gowns. I cry, desperately hoping they know of the love I already feel for them. I name them and hope and plan and pray for the day when I can know the awesome power and deep humility that comes with bringing Heavenly Father's most cherished creation into the world.

And I rejoice for others. I rejoice when I hear of someone I love being pregnant. I rejoice in my 4 nieces and 15 nephews (with one on the way). I rejoice in the older children I teach in Seminary and the younger children I teach in Primary. I rejoice in their potential, in their uniqueness, and in the light of Christ bursting from their young but my no means small personalities. Children truly are an heritage of the Lord, and I can rejoice in them whether they were given to me or to someone else.