The Woman I Become

I believe that the people that you love most have the power to change the person that you are.

Falling in love with Scott forever changed the woman that I am. I look back with fondness on the girl I was. She is someone I was always happy to be. But I'm different now. And although as I was content before, I became even more so afterwards. I became more open and trusting. I felt more stable and peaceful. I think I gained wisdom. I don't think you can love and not be wiser.

Loving Soren has irrevocably changed me too, as I hope every child I have will. Sometimes I feel as though I have borrowed his driving need for self-discovery and his refreshing lack of inhibitions. Sometimes, when I look in his sleepy eyes, I feel as though I have regained a lost innocence. And, again, I believe I am wiser now.

This is how it happens: I'm sitting on the couch reading a book or a blog. I am encompassed by my own affairs and my own interests; I am an island and happy to stay that way. Soren is balanced by the coffee table, excited to touch and move everything. He is babbling in a way that seems absent-minded. Look up. Behold your little one. I look up from my task, from myself, and see him. He is the flesh of my flesh. He is my son. He is innocent and full of potential. And, feeling my eyes on him, he turns to smile at me. He knows so little and yet mine is the face that makes him smile. My little perfect boy, and he loves me. Elder Russel M. Ballard has said that mothers must realize that "the joy of motherhood comes in moments". Often, this is one of those moments. It is a shining yet ephemeral piece of sacred time. I look up from myself. I love him and I become a new person. A mother, the realization of my potential.

Then, suddenly, the glow has faded. But the change remains. Love has the power to change us, to make us become more like He who loves us.