I have never experienced joy like I have felt in my role as a mother to Kai. Having a child of my own has given me so much greater appreciation of how Heavenly Father must feel about His children. I truly know what unconditional love feels like.
Beyond teaching me about love, motherhood has taught me the importance and rewards of selflessness. Although I still have selfish moments as a mother, generally speaking, the needs of my child always trump my own needs. So motherhood can be tiring in a way that is hard to explain, because a child is in a constant state of need. But it is also hard to explain how rewarding the sacrifice for a child's sake is. There is nothing that I do in my life that is more worthwhile than the time that I spend and the service that I give to Kai.
Yo and I created a baby, but we are molding a person. More importantly, the little person that we created is often the one who is molding us. Motherhood has made me more patient, more forgiving, more joyous, more compassionate, more selfless, more invested, and in many ways, more myself than I've been in a long time.
There is something about the unconditional love that only a child is capable of sharing that makes me feel most at ease in my own skin. When Kai looks at me there is no judgment. I don't worry about how I look or what I'm wearing, the silly things I might say or the embarrassing things I might do. He looks at me as though I'm his whole world, and in many ways I am.
The responsibility is an awesome one. I look at Kai and my heart melts at his innocence. There is no contempt in his eyes. He has not felt the hurt of the world. He loves simply and perfectly. He is perfectly trusting and perfectly forgiving.
There are times that I cannot fathom how God could trust one so flawed to raise one of his precious sons--a son that he loves with the perfect love of a perfect Father. But I also have come to realize that it is out of His love for me that He has extended to me this blessing. That through my role as a mother, I might become the woman that He knows I am capable of being.
