We are sowing, daily sowing...

I was attending our recent Stake Young Women Leadership Meeting*. While there, we sung the song We Are Sowing, to go along with the idea of how we are helping to grow a garden of strong, spiritual girls. Well, not only did this song remind me of young women...but my thoughts eventually led, as they typically do, to motherhood. The song starts with the line, "We are sowing, daily sowing Countless seeds of good and ill," then goes on to describe all the different places these seeds could be sown. There are the good places, like in "rich, brown furrows, Soft with heaven's gracious rain," and not so good places, like those "cast out in crowded places, trodden under foot of men."


It just reminded me that through the day, I'm sowing seeds inside my children, both with my harsh words and my gentle ones. When I teach my children of Jesus...and when I unintentionally teach my children that yelling is an appropriate way to express emotion. Sorry to be such a downer...but I was actually really comforted while singing the song, because the overall message of it is that even though our good seeds often fall on deaf ears, that some of them really do fall in fertile places...that if we ask the Lord to "bid thine angels guard the furrows Where the precious grain is sown," that he really WILL help us in our teaching of our children and in their ability to listen and learn. It's tough work being a mommy, especially since I often wonder if all my children will do is remember the yells and time-outs and forget the frequent hugs, giggles, and kisses...but this song reminded me that with the not-so-great seeds we sow, we also sow wonderful seeds, "sown in tears and love and prayer." At the end of the day, that's all I can really do. I can go to work in my garden of children and pray for the Lord to help my seeds take root, growing healthy and strong.


*For those of you not members of the LDS church, Young Women is our female version of your typical church youth group and our Stake is our church's organization in the area we live in.