My Entire Life

 

My Entire Life

Can Be Described In One Sentence:

It didn't go as planned,

And that's Okay. 

I am pretty sure that most of us can identify with this one.  I remember when I was a teenager and we wrote what our husbands were going to be like when we were older.  Mine was going to have blond hair and blue eyes and be six foot tall and be an athlete.  I never really thought about the traits I wanted in a man.  I thought mostly about the physical.  Instead, I have learned that there are so many more important things than looks.  Kindness is at the top of my list.  A willingness to let me be myself.  A love of Heavenly Father.  A testimony.  Love for my children.  A good father and a good husband.  There are so many more important things than what people look like or pretend to be like.  

For my own self, I should have wanted to be independent, with self-reliance and a strong testimony.  I never knew that I would need tenacity and love for the people in my life that would hurt me so much.  I never knew how important forgiveness would be, not only for myself, but for others in my life.  I think when I was young, I thought forgiveness was more between my Heavenly Father and me, I never realized that it would need to be part of many areas of my life.  

I have learned that it is okay to dream, but it is also okay to adjust our dreams to something we never imagined.  Life has never been what I imagined in would be.  In someways, it has been so much worse, but in the ways that matter most, it has been better than I ever could have dreamed.

If I could go back and change anything, I would not.  Don't get me wrong, I have made lots of mistakes that I wish I hadn't, but I have learned so much.  And everything I have been through has brought me to this point.  A place where I am happy, where I am needed and where I am loved.  A wife with an amazing husband, a mother with eleven amazing children, a grandmother with loving and wonderful grand-children.  

I have had a lot to learn and absolutely nothing has gone as planned.

And that is totally Okay!