The blog for yesterday was going to be about Parenting, but then I was redirected by a phone call from my 30 year old daughter. It reminded me that no matter how old they are, what experiences they have in life or how far away they live, you never stop being their mother/parent. My heart literally broke to hear of my daughters most recent experience, I could not believe that she had to endure this particular incident and yet as much as I would take these tragedies from her life, I do know that they are all "for her good". It's hard to say that, but I have come to understand that as parents, if we take all the "hard things" out of their path and spend all of our energies ensuring that everything is a "good experience", how will they grow? How will they know for sure that the path they are on is the right one? The bottom line is that no matter who you think you are, you won't always be there and at some point things may not be easy for them and all experiences are not "good", if they have no frame of reference for this, how will they stand up to it.

As heartbroken as I felt for the things my daughter had to endure this past week, I was never so proud of her. She had to make a hard decision and she chose wisely, using all the experience she has gained thus far in her life. She stood up to a gruesome task and did not falter. She learned some hard things that day and I know she will be stronger and better for it. Her choice was in fact the right one, even though the outcome was not what she had hoped and as sad as that is, it is a catalyst for exponential growth. All of these things will be added to her and a part of her life experience and she will stand a little higher up on the mountain. She is also a mother and these experiences will help shape her children, as well, as she passes on her knowledge, experience and philosophy in life.

I had intended to blog about parenting, but these are not the things I had intended to say, but what better way to express our feelings about parenting than to site our children as examples. None of us will be the perfect parent, just as none of us were the perfect child, but this is a place where love does in fact win out. I think if you can send children into the world with the knowledge that they are loved; loved by you and their Heavenly parents that is more than half the battle. I think we all need to forgive ourselves our missteps in parenting and most importantly we need to forgive our parents. After all we are all just doing the best that we can with the information that we have at the time.