I Was Really Here

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautiful tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt form making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my nails from helping weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheek and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived. "
— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I absolutely love Marjorie Hinckley and miss her wit and insight. This is one of my favorite quotes from her, including the one where she says something along the lines of choosing laughter over crying, because crying gives her a headache. Choices can make or break us, sometimes they break us for a little bit and we are made to our fullest potential in the end, but it is the choices that get us there. It's also about changing our perception to see how blessed we really are, leaving the wants behind and cherishing what we have in the here and now. I know, as I have seen it in my own life and others, that when we do our part that the Lord expects of us, hopes of us, He in turn can do His part and bless us in ways that we never thought possible. I love being a mom, and am grateful for the opportunity that I can be a mom after the many challenges I have faced with several miscarriages and coming to a point that I thought that I would never have this blessing in my life. I have my days, as everyone does of pulling my hair out --- maybe that is where all my gray comes from. But nevertheless, I do enjoy the life that has been given to me and do my best to make the choices that like Marjorie Hinckley, I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.