a letter.

An author's note: These words were not written for you to read, but I felt impressed to share them with you. Please know that as you do, you are reading things that I have fought incredibly hard to learn. You are reading a lot of who I am in the very corners of me, too, seeing a part of myself that, for all my openness and desire for authenticity and vulnerability, I don’t divulge often -- in part because it’s so honest, so authentic, that I worry that people will misinterpret it, twist it into something less pure than it is. I don't write these words to manipulate your feelings for the sake of it, or to appear to you in any particular way, or to make you think of me differently; these words are simply the truths that I know, written to the children I believe I will one day be blessed to have, and they come from the deepest part of my soul.

To my dear ones:

I'm currently twenty-one, and I think about you every single day. Sometimes with a lot of impatience.

I don't pretend to know how close I am to meeting you, but I fancy believing that every day is just a step in your direction.

Something I know well is that there will be people who tell you, even in your childhood, that life is hard. People did this to me when I was young. And it is, they're right. I believe that these people are mostly well-meaning, and are trying to protect you. But I hope that you will see my wide-open eyes and my smile and hear it in my voice as I try to speak to you, in more than just words, how beautiful and wonderful and worth-it life is as well.

I know, my precious children, that there will be your inevitable share of sorrows, of twisted ankles, sore throats, and broken hearts. And while it is my instinct, as your mother, to protect you from all the pain this journey is invariably full of, I have learned by experience the necessity of it. Pain is not welcome, nor is it inherently good, and I don't want it for you, at all, ever. But I'm not naïve enough to believe that I can -- or should -- protect you from every trial.

So since I cannot save you from all the pain that comes as a consequence of living here on earth, I will do my best to teach you that the hard times are simply crossroads. Each and every one of the trials you experience here provides you with a choice, and that is why they are necessary; not because pain is good, but because we have to have decisions to make in order to grow into ourselves. And because you are who you are, my angels, you have the power to make your pain and suffering into an improving experience rather than a debilitating experience. Remember this always; the trial is not good, it is you who are good and can, through the help of the Savior, turn a hard thing into a good thing. The choice we are given in a hardship is often a choice to move closer to or further from the Lord Jesus Christ, and I promise you that if you choose to bind yourself to Him, that is when your pain becomes refining rather than a tragedy designed to uproot you.

I want you to learn that it isn't always comfortable, or even fun, to love somebody, which makes it no less love. Sometimes love requires you to share more of yourself than you're comfortable with; sometimes you have to let something upsetting go even if you're dying to criticize; sometimes you have to let go entirely and trust that the Lord is preparing experiences for that amazing person that will help them, and for now, there's nothing you can do but pray. Love is sacrifice of self, my sweet little ones. It is learning to put the happiness of another before your own. It is making space in your life for someone else. It's not ever easy. Sometimes, much as it may hurt you to admit, what they need is not you. Sometimes, as terrifying as it may be, what they need is exactly you. I hope you'll be wise enough to know the difference and brave enough to act accordingly.

Much of your pain, I anticipate, will come from caring for other people who also have choices and who sometimes choose to do things that do not make sense to us. Choose to love them anyway. Specifically, I cannot detail what the right choices will be for you; generally, I can promise you that a choice to be loving and kind is always the right choice, and a far nobler, far stronger, far harder thing to do than a choice to be hard and unforgiving. There may be moments, my dears, when you must fight for yourself and others, when you must be strong and demand for justice or insist upon proper treatment, and that does take courage to do. But I hold that the bravest and best part of ourselves is witnessed when we give kindness and compassion along with uncompromising morality in such times. So, although it may be your natural reflex, do not let the pain of living make you tough and unyielding; instead, show a tender heart, even if that seems to you to bring you lower. Let the trial make you kind and compassionate toward those who may also be suffering. Turn your eyes on the Lord, and let Him show you those around you who need your confidence, your light, even if you yourself are in darkness and don't know where to find relief.

I want to teach you that there will be people who are just so good for you and your heart and your soul, and there are those who are not. You don't have to give a lot of time and energy to those who are not good for you, but you do still have to love them, because they are people. That is one of the hardest things to do, at least for me. But know this: even angry people deserve patience; even mean people deserve kindness; even the worst sinners deserve mercy, and even the most toxic people deserve to be loved. I'm not suggesting you put your emotional health and safety on the line; I simply suggest that there is more to every person than we immediately see, my little ones. Your Heavenly Father will thank you for giving love where hate was flung at you, and you will feel peace as you choose the harder, more graceful response to vitriol and unpleasantness and bigotry and bitterness. There is so much of that in the world, my dears, enough to last forever. You don't need to add to it or let it ruin the purity of your souls.

These words that I have written are the details of some lessons that I have learned just over the past few weeks. I have been stretched from one extreme to the other, and have found myself questioning the foundations of my character, my reason for doing things, the direction I am facing, and the desires of my heart. I have had to ask myself questions that I never anticipated asking. Sometimes, we have to do that, my loves. Sometimes there is no easy answer, and sometimes the answers we seek seem unknowable. But anything worth anything in life is not going to come easily, and I promise you that I will endure the things I have to endure to receive those things. I believe that they will be worth it in the end.

In short, there will always be upsetting experiences. Those really are a constant of life. But there is so much joy to be had as well, if we play our cards right.

One of the most exciting things for me to imagine is watching you come to understand the world around you. I want to show you everything -- the sea, the valley from the tops of the mountains, dry deserts, jungles, rivers, waterfalls, trees, streets packed with people and lights, skyscrapers, pizza places, arcades, art museums, music. I want to watch you discover what makes up a butterfly's wing, how planes stay in the air, and the growing patterns of sunflowers and berry bushes and herb gardens. I want you to see the earth's beauty and goodness and love the sunshine and dance in the rain. I want to examine things with you, and I want you to learn to love to learn, and I want to read you books and books and books. I want to see the worlds inside your heads and point you to worlds beyond; I want to learn the stars with you, and help you greet them by name. I want you to remember that stars are brave to shine when it's dark, and you can be that sort of brave as well.

I want to run and play with you and laugh at the things you say and do, and I want to hear you laughing at me. I want to be there when you shoot your first basket and swing your first bat, and I want to cheer you on at games and recitals and performances, even if you sing the wrong note or shoot the ball into the wrong hoop. I want to pick you up when you fall off your bike for the first time. I want to blast your favorite songs and dance to them with you. I want to teach you to win at cards. I will not teach you that everyone's a winner. I'll teach you that those who work hard and do their best are successful. And I won't stop you from learning to tease, to joke, and hopefully to take jokes in return. I hope I can teach you to listen with patience, and not to take yourselves too seriously. Life is better when you're laughing, I believe.

Like any parent, I want to tell you that you can do anything, be anything. The possibilities for you are endless, and I hope I can teach you to believe that. I want you to explore things, rewrite your dreams, make plans and follow them. I want to be there with you when you discover what feels like fire in your bones, what really gets your wheels turning, what you are passionate about. I want to be there to watch you seize upon what makes you happiest and chase it down with reckless abandon; or, as may be the case, I want to watch as life slowly begins to make sense to you, and the sun rises in your mind, and you grow into love for all of it. I want to see you change yourself and so change the world. And I want to teach you to cheer others on in their dreams and goals.

I want to help you figure out faith. I hope that as you grow older, you will simply learn deeper the simple truths that you learned as a child. The gospel isn't as complicated as we make it out to be; answers to prayers are available, and God loves you, and you are His precious child, and you were His before you were ever mine. I cannot wait for the days when stories are told of you, when I hear from others that you have become an answer to their prayers. I hope I get to watch you learn to love to help others, and I hope you share it with me when you learn that Jesus was not just a character in a nice book, but a real man who lived on earth and died to save you, you specifically.

I want you to know that I know you will not always make sense to me. I know you will make mistakes. You will not be my idea of perfect, nor will you be anyone else's. But this does not matter. I am your mother. To me, you are always enough. And I promise to do my best to learn to understand you. I promise also to give you what space I can afford to give you to figure your own self out. And I'll be there to work out the kinks in your soul if you need me. If you're anything like me, you'll want to do it all by yourself. If you're anything like me, though, you'll also learn that you can't always do it all by yourself, and if those moments ever arise, by golly, I'm here for you.

My darlings, I also want you to know that I am so not perfect. Like, I can't even communicate to you how absolutely imperfect I am. I know full well that though my intentions are pure and good, my actions will not always be perfectly consistent with those intentions. I may choke on my most inspired words. I am not always the most patient woman. There is much that I don't know and don't understand. I don't have answers to many of the questions you may ask me. I don't always know what to say. I'm sometimes so awkward. I can be unkind. I worry a lot. I misinterpret. I mistake. I sin. Sometimes I sin on purpose. With me as your mother, you are cursed (but also blessed) to learn to forgive. I hope with all my soul that you'll be able to see me the way I am, and love me despite all the things I have done and all the things I haven't. I really hope you can see past my many mistakes all the way into my heart.

Because that heart belongs to you. In a way I cannot fully comprehend and so must assume is given to me by God, I love you. I have loved you for longer than I think even I have been aware. And I will love you past the reconstruction of the earth and the dimming of the stars. There are many promises I wish I could make to you, promises of good friends and health and material successes, but I just don't know about those things. What I do know, though, well as anything, is my own heart. And I know that you have changed that heart. Because of you, it has beat in double-time, partially for my hopes and dreams for the future, and partially for you, who make up such a substantial part of those dreams. And on the hardest days, occasionally, it beats purely out of hope that one day I'll get to meet you, hold you, and tell you how much I have longed to share with you how loved you are.

I hope you can tell, my precious children, that I was born to love you. It is in my blood, and it is in yours.

Finally, I simply want you to know that where I cannot go with you, the Savior always can. He is bigger than I am, and if you can imagine it, He loves you even more than I do. He is there whenever you need Him. His love is the only thing on earth that never fails. When you cannot trust me, trust in that love. When life is dark, He is the star that will shine bravely through that darkness to find you. He can heal you in ways that I never could. Turn to Him in every thought; doubt not. Fear not.

I love you, I love you, I love you. It's almost a relief to say that to you, I mean it so much. I love you.

Love, Mom.