Beauty Revived

I was lucky enough to be selected to be spotlighted at a Stake's Women's Conference at the beginning of April.  The key note speaker was Michelle Gifford, who is the founder of Beauty Revived. Beauty Revived is a great campaign to help women see that their unique life experiences, talents, and even shortcomings make them beautiful not their physical appreance.  I met her the night before where she took my picture and the pictures of my family (I may have called Jacob and told him to hurry and come so I wouldn't just be in the pictures myself!).  

I should also mention I'm pretty sure I was chosen because of sitting next to the stake relief society presidency in ward conference.  By the time Jacob and I got in the room after taking all the kids to their classes there was just two empty seats in the front.  We took them and started pulling out cheerios to keep Spencer and Max quiet; who thought it would then be fun to throw them at the feet of the stake president.  I made jokes with the counselor sitting next to me and we giggled as the stake president silently picked the cheerios off the ground so no one would smash them, and that night I get a call from her asking if they could spot light me.  I was very flattered.

Michelle's message that morning was so beautifully put I wish I could remember more of it in detail.  But I'm sure everyone felt of their divine worth and the divine worth of everyone around them, I know I did.  She talked about how our struggles make us who we are and THAT is what makes us beautiful. Not the perfect circumstances around us.  She used the analogy of a candle in a dark room, when another candle is lit, it doesn't diminish the light of the first candle but gives MORE light to the room.  So it should be with everyone around us.  When someone else is shining, we don't need to feel bad because our light is dimmer, because it's still shining just as bright.  We need to cheer everyone on around us, not look for ways to compare and diminish ourselves or others.  Honestly it was such a magnificent message! 

In preparation for the day, they asked me to answer some questions and write up a short bio for Michelle to use in her presentation.  After writing a short bio of my life I wrote the following.

I feel very strongly that our family was given to us the way it was in part to teach us lessons we need to learn in this life, sooner rather than later.  I struggle with the opinions that others have of me, but with each of my pregnancies Heavenly Father taught me that the only opinions that mattered were mine, Jacob’s, and our Father in Heaven’s.   Having our children so close seems outrageous to many, but fortunately I have the faith needed to follow God’s plan for us instead of the world’s idea of an ideal family.  Often I’ll be talking to friends about their struggles in motherhood and they’ll stop themselves, thinking surely they have nothing to say since I have 6 boys so close.  But one important thing that motherhood has taught me is that everyone’s struggles are real. One child was HARD.  Raising two kids is HARD (I told Jacob we would have no more!).  I don’t really know about three or five children, but raising 4 and 6 children is HARD.  Every family situation is different, which creates different struggles. 

But I’ve found time and time again, that the true source I can turn to that will always be there is our Heavenly Father.  It’s wonderful to get wisdom from loved ones and from good books, but when I’m really stuck with a problem, or feel like life is just too much (pretty much every day lately) there is a source that will never steer me wrong or let me down.  The atonement of Jesus Christ allows us to pray to our Father for guidance and help.  It has the power to help us have the energy we need throughout the day, the patience for that child that just rubs us the wrong way, and the knowledge to know how to reach out to that child who seems distant.  If you’d like to know how I’m able to take care of my family along with the household chores, it’s 100% heaven’s help.  I pray constantly to know what I need to spend my time worrying about and what just isn’t a big deal.  I strive to live my life so that I can always have the Spirit to help me know who needs my help and when the screaming is just for fun.  My boys will often find me on my knees in my room, in the bathroom, or in the middle of the chaos in the living room and I hope they always will.  How do I handle the stress of taking care of so many little children?  With a lot of prayer and help from my Heavenly Father, his angels (both in heaven and on earth), and most importantly His Son, Jesus Christ.   

My favorite picture

Michelle e-mailed me the next week saying they had someone back out last minute for a campaign they were doing, "America's 50 Most Beautiful Mothers" and wanted to know if she could add me into that spot.  It's a magazine that recently came out, and I'm astonished and flattered to be a part of it.  She said it was meant to be the way everything fell together, but I think it was a Heavenly Father wanting His daughter to know she was perfect just the way she is.  This whole thing has really helped me see it's okay that my house isn't the cleanest, my meals the most gourmet, my children the smartest, most well-groomed, or best behaved, or my figure what it was in high school.  I'm doing my best with my destined role in this life, and that's enough. I'm enough.  YOU'RE enough.  We're beautiful just the way we are, being who we were meant to be.