I have the opportunity to serve in the youth organization of my church with the teenage girls. My position is to advise, encourage and support them while they complete a goal-oriented program called Personal Progress which helps them draw closer to their Heavenly Father. On Sundays, I attend their meeting, and last Sunday the Young Women President gave us a talk to read to ponder about so we can discuss our thoughts. It is called "Bread or Stones" by S. Michael Wilcox. I read it earlier this week and again this morning for my morning reading portion.
The part that touched me the most was when Brother Wilcox talks about holding places of the heart. I immediately thought of my life and the holding places I've held in my heart. Of course, the first one that comes to mind is how my family has come to be. I received my patriarchal blessing when I was 13 years old. I remember being confused when it didn't spell out the words, "You will have children." It mentioned getting married and "starting" my eternal family and it had the word "posterity" in there once, but nothing specifically about being a mother. I was confused, worried, and not sure why it didn't spell it out. That was also a time in my life when I told myself that "I could never adopt because I don't think I could love another person's child the way I loved my own." Obviously, I wasn't ready to know how my family would be constructed.
When you have a finite object, how do you enlarge it? For example, when you have a larger number of people at your house to eat dinner, and your table only fits 4, what do you do? You break it open it up (in the middle) and add a leaf in the table -- you expand it. You can add more people because the manufacturer of the table has made a giant cut down the middle of the table so you can pull it apart and add more "table." You have to break the table before adding more. When you add that extra leaf, it adds to the length and beauty of the table, and then magically, everyone can fit.
A couple of weeks ago, this very lesson came to mind. I began thinking about how my family came to be and what it looks like. I have four beautiful children. Two of those children have other families, families that we consider an extension of ours. They are a part of us because they are a part of our children. Each of those relationships is unique to the situation, but in our hearts, they are a part of us and always will be. They each have a seat at our table. My family is much larger than four children.
It has been twenty years since my patriarchal blessing, and I have more than "started" my family. I have borne two children, and we have adopted two children. How did such a path and change in my heart come to be? The "manufacturer"- my Heavenly Father - had to make a giant cut in the middle of my heart -- break it wide open to make room for more. (Granted, that cut felt more like a giant hand ripping my heart out, tearing it apart, and trying to put it back.) I had to lose my little girl to make room for the rest of my family.
Today, with tears in my eyes, I can thank my Heavenly Father for loving me enough to enlarge my heart. I can thank him for my moments with my daughter and thank my daughter for accepting her short mission on her earth to help our family grow. It is with gratitude that I can face this ninth Memorial Day weekend without my Clarissa and thank her for her sacrifice and ours for our family. I can thank the Lord for ripping my heart to make room for more. In two days, I get the opportunity to hug Emily's birth grandmother again since meeting her at the hospital in December. When once I wasn't able to get past the thought of loving another mother's child, nor knowing how to "share" him/her, I now have a family beyond my original comprehension and definition of what a family unit looks like. Today I understand a little more about the holding places in a heart.
(From April 5, 2015 - our annual Easter visit to Clarissa's grave)
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