on motherhood

After watching some of my nursery children scamper about my living room while I hosted playgroup this morning; after reading this month's Ensign, with its timely First Presidency message and artwork featuring the love a mother has for her children; after reflecting upon both Mary's responsibility to raise the Christ child as well as my own new responsibilities as a mother; and after reflecting on the wonder of childhood, I have found myself simultaneously feeling both an overwhelming weight of the responsibility and trust given me and an exhilarating rush of awe and gratitude for it. And, I must admit, it has reduced me to a few tears over the last couple of days. So here are a few sentiments which I have both read recently, as well as a few which have penetrated me for years on the beauty of motherhood.

"I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. "

Charles Dickens

"When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn't stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother's heart, and she puts it into the baby's mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies."

E. T. Sullivan

"O sisters, too, how may we do, For to preserve this day This poor Youngling for whom we sing; By, by, lully, lullay."

The Coventry Carol

"It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of the your mind, and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

J. M. Barrie in Peter and Wendy

"Behold your little ones, and see within them the wonders of God, from whose presence they have recently come."

President Gordon B. Hinckley

"Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels."

Elder Russell M. Nelson

"Whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your children and you must hug your children and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not one what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house."

Barbara Bush to the graduates of Wellesley College