The Sacred Calling of Motherhood

From the beginning of time, mothers have been a major part of families. While Elder Bruce C. Hafen was a member of the seventy, he said "For most of our history, the word motherhood meant honor, endearment, and sacrifice.... Yet this spirit of self-sacrifice has become a contentious issue in recent years, making contentious the very idea of motherhood." How true it is that motherhood has become a contentious issue. So many of my friends have had babies recently, and out of them, I would say a little over one third of them don't actually want to be a mother. How sad it is that they would give up their sweet babies to be able to keep going to parties, to keep drinking and doing drugs, or to get ahead in a career.
In 1942, the first presidency declared "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." Mothers are people who are so special. I have had several mothers, including my own mother who have made an amazing impact on my life. They have given me the help that I need, they have helped to shape who I am, and they have taught me the ways of the Lord.
A few of the mothers who have impacted me the most would be my mom, my sister, my grandmother, my great grandmothers, and several friends.
My mom has helped me through everything and despite me having crazy ideas, she has supported me through my every endeavor. She has been such an influence of who I have become and what I want to achieve in my life. Sometimes, when life gets really hard and I just feel really down, she is the one who is there to pick me up and help me feel better.

My mom, my Sister, and Myself

My sister is somebody who I wish I could be more like. She is super loving, she loves to help me out with all of my problems, she tries so hard and keeps going even when she wants to quit, and she is somebody who a lot of people have looked up to. She is the mother of two small children and has one more on the way. She has a strong foundation and knows that without a doubt, being a mother is what she is supposed to be doing. She knows that it is what the Lord wants.

My grandma, mom, and I

My grandma has been the rock to our family for a long time. She is the one who joined the church and has kept us going in the gospel, despite when we might be falling away or even just "taking a break". She is one major blessing to our family. She has taught me so much about becoming a mother, becoming a wife, and about being a friend to those around us. She is an amazing woman who has so much to offer us.
A friend from church, Sister Bateman, is another amazing example of being an amazing mother. She is the wife of our former stake president and she is one of the most amazing, most selfless people that I know. She welcomed everyone to her home and she loved to have my siblings and I over ever Saturday morning for breakfast with the missionaries. She is somebody that I would love to be more like. She was a very gentle woman and she always loved to talk and to teach and most of all, she loved to love.

There is a primary song about mothers. I Often Go Walking

I often go walking in meadow of clover, And I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue. I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over; Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.
O mother, I give you my love with each flower To give forth sweet fragrance a whole lifetime through; For if I love blossoms and meadows and walking, I learn how to love them, dear mother, from you.

To all of the amazing and sweet mother out in the world, any where in the world, just know that you are loved by so many people.

MARRIAGE & AN EQUAL PARTNERSHIP

Within "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", we learn about the importance of marriage and how marriage is an equal partnership between man and woman. These two principles were meant for us to be taught. We learn that we are to be together in marriage and in partnership.

The Importance of Marriage
Like most important relationships, marriage is an important one. One above others. We learn many things about man and woman and the important role they have as a husband and a wife through many different readings. In Genesis 2:24, we learn that a man must "leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife", so that he and his wife can "be one flesh." LDS President Spencer W. Kimball said in his book "The Miracle of Forgiveness", "The successful marriage depends in large measure upon the preparation made in approaching it... One cannot pick the ripe, rich, luscious fruit from a tree that was never planted, nurtured, nor pruned."
In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau, determined that "Most young people no longer associate marriage with the transition to adulthood" and "a notable rise in the average age at which people first marry." In the year 2003, the average man was 27.1 years old the first time he got married and the average woman was 25.3 the first time she got married. This was 13 years ago. I'm sure that the average age for men and women getting married the first time has most likely risen since then.
Brother Merrill J. and Sister Marilyn S. Bateman teach us that, we live in a consumer culture. A culture where "people have learned to discard everything from paper plates to spouses" causing many to be understandably fearful of marriage. There is a fear of divorce, fear of being an inadequate spouse, fear of financial needs, and a fear of lifestyle changes that may compound sufficiently the need for singles to look forward to getting married.

An Equal Partnership
Having a marriage where one person thinks that they are better than everyone else, is not only harmful to the emotions of the other person, but it is also harmful to the marriage itself. This is why we learn in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, that we are equal in our marriage, our partnership, and in our roles as parents. Even though we all aspire to be of "one heart and one mind" (Moses 7:18) this doesn't mean that we are identical. We learn from the scriptures that one gender does not have greater eternal possibility than the other. (Moses 2:26-27; 2 Nephi 26: 28, 33) We need to think of all that we believe to be true about the the equality, both here and in Zion, of men and
women in God's kingdom: equal in blessings; equal in power, intelligence, wisdom, dignity, respect, giving counsel, giving consent, agency, value, potential, authority, exalted fullness, virtue, spirituality, and spiritual gifts; equal in temporal thing in Zion; and equal heirs with Christ.

Elder Earl C. Tingey, then serving as a member of the Seventy, said in a CES fireside, "You must not misunderstand what the Lord meant when Adam was told he was to have a helpmeet. A helpmeet is a companion suited to or equal to us. We walk side by side with a helpmeet, not one before or behind the other. A helpmeet results in an absolute equal partnership between a husband and a wife. Eve was to be equal to Adam as a husband and wife are to be equal to each other." From the beginning, we have been meant to be together. To be willing to work with one another, to counsel with one another and to be with one another. It has never been meant to be one before the other, but one with another.

I know that because of the things that we are taught in The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we can truly become and have all that the Father has in store for each of us. We can be and are a blessing to our spouse, our children, and our families. I know that through the Lord all things are possible and we can gain all things through Him.