Women I Admire: My Daughter and Messages on a Wall

I do a series on my personal blog called Women I Admire. After a hard week where I found myself literally embraced and supported by some angel women in my life, I felt sharing this might be appropriate. It's from about two years ago, so forgive the flash back. I've discovered that messages are still being written on my walls, and the ones written this week were no less important than ones from my childhood. God is still there. He loves me and is still very much aware of me and the trials I face. I'm so grateful for the women He sent to me this week in my moment of need.

Several years ago, I was at a Relief Society mid-week activity that my cousin spoke at. She is married to one of my older cousins and actually was one of my Young Women's leaders growing up. She talked about body image and the way we see ourselves. She told us to close our eyes and imagine walking along a road. I imagined the road, long and empty, cutting through an expanse of yellow and orange dust. Then she said to imagine we came to a wall. We can't get around this wall. Our Savior is standing there. He reaches out and writes something on the wall. What does he write?

She never told us what the Savior would write. In my self-destructive way, I'd been harboring feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. Up to that point, I'd only berated myself for falling short of the ideals she'd spoke of. To my surprise, when I imagined what my Savior would write on my wall, it wasn't chastisement.

He wrote, "I Love You."

My baby is three months now. The messages she gets are mostly from me. I try so hard to write "I love you" on her wall. I see another Young Women's leader and hear her voice as she spoke of her four young daughters. "I try to never criticize myself in front of them. I don't want them see themselves like that." Its hard, but that is what I'm trying to do as well.

I recently reconnected with another leader from my teenage years. It got me to thinking about these women God put in my life and the messages they wrote on my walls. I didn't always believe them, but they never gave up.

At girls camp one year, a leader came for only a day. Before she left that night, she sang to us. She wrote "You are a daughter of God." across my wall. I believed it then, but doubts slipped in. Months later, at another event, she sang again. Tears spilled down my face as she looked in my eyes and re-etched her message. "Walk tall, you're a daughter, a child of God."

My leaders wrote other messages.

"You're important." When she tracked me down when I didn't show up to one of my very first young women's activities when I was only twelve.

"I trust you." When she let me watch her babies for the entire summer, five years in row.

"You have something to give." When she asked me to sing a solo, even though I wasn't very good at singing.

"God Loves You." Over and over again. "You are his daughter."

The world was writing their own messages. Messages about how tall I was, how wide I was, the size of my feet, the number of pimples on my face. Messages about the times I failed, lost, or came up short. Messages that screamed across my wall.

But when I came to that imaginary wall all those years later and faced my Savior, the messages that stayed were the messages that mattered. The ones that were the truth.

He wrote, "I love you."

And now the messages of these leaders are being written in my daughter's life. "You are beautiful," I tell her. "I love you." "I want you." The women I admired as a young girl are changing my baby's life.

Others will write across my daughter's wall. Some will try to destroy her with lies. But then she will go to Young Women's. She will go to girls camp. She will meet beautiful women God has placed there just for her. They will tell her the truth. They will re-etch across her wall. I pray between us, we will be enough. I pray that when she reaches her own walls, she will also find her Savior, and, with faith burning in her heart, she will already know what He will write.

If You Have It

(Photo Credit: Google Image)

This summer my friend Sierra took a road trip from Texas to Utah with her three children: Maya, nine; Josh, six; and Carly, three. And I had the honor of hosting them one night. 

Before bedtime, Josh played Wii with my teenaged sons while Maya and Carly watched Harry Potter in a different room. The next morning, much to my horror, I––the guilty hostess––got up at 8:00AM and found Maya and Josh wandering in the living room, obviously hungry and bored. 

I quickly fed them cold cereal then set up a game of chess for Maya and me, while Josh played with Jurassic World Legos. About twenty minutes later, they were done with chess and Legos. Maya scanned the collection of board games stacked on the living room shelves and exclaimed, “We'll play Ticket to Ride!”

“I don’t know how to play that game.” I admitted. 

“What?” Maya looked at me with deep confusion. “How can you not know how to play?”

“Because I’ve never played.”

“But you have it. Over there.” She pointed at the game, somewhat annoyed, or maybe disappointed, most likely both. Her face was puffed up with disapproval of my lack of game skills. 

“I know.” I said, wondering if I should explain to her that no one in my family is particularly interested in playing board games anymore. 

“But if you have it, why don’t you ever play it?” Maya said before taking Josh out to the backyard to jump on the trampoline, leaving me to wallow alone in the question that sounded simple, yet hard to answer. 

I realized there are many other things I have that I’ve somewhat neglected, and the most significantly important of all is time with my children while they still live under my roof. 

I’m living in a season when I still have the blessing of seeing all my children every day: seeing them walking in and out of their bedrooms, the kitchen, the garage. Hearing their croaking teenaged boys’ voices telling, laughing, complaining. Smelling their nausea-inducing lacrosse socks, helmets, jerseys. Time and things so plain, routine, and ordinary that I’ve forgotten every second having them physically present in my life makes my house a home––heaven on earth. 

I often think of, and plan for, my empty nester life. I keep thinking I want to move far away. I want to travel and see places. I want to be the best grandmother in the world, better than the mother I’ve ever been to my boys. But I’ve obviously forgotten that I don't have it yet––despite all my retirement fantasies, I don't have the privilege of spoiling my grandkids just yet. I've forgotten that in the glorious moment I’m currently living, I should strive to be the best mother in the world to my children before I can work to be the best grandmother to their children. 

I can just imagine an older, more mature version of Maya coming to me with this question: “You have your kids still living with you, why don’t you go create bonding memories with them right now?” 

But it was the nine-year-old wise Maya who ran back to me from the backyard, her sunbaked hand grabbing mine; her sparkling brown eyes filled with excitement. “Come jump with me!” she said.

“Uh––” I hesitated, trying to find the best way to tell her I’d actually never jumped on the trampoline in my backyard, either. I wanted to tell her I didn’t much care about the trampoline; it just came with the house. I wanted to tell her I suffered from this paralyzing back pain; jumping on the trampoline would be the end of me. But then I remembered how I should answer her question. 

I jumped on the backyard trampoline with Maya and Josh that summer morning, our animated shadows bouncing on the black surface, laughing, playing, and telling stories. And it was in that precise moment––when I took advantage of what I had––that I was convinced I had the potential of becoming a wonderful grandmother after all. 

Allison

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