This traveler hit a patch of fog. On my road as a mother, I was helping my daughter with a sewing project for school earlier this month.
My first patch of fog was getting my sewing machine ready that morning. I had already spent a lot of time getting my sewing room back in order, I just needed to thread the machine. Not a big deal right? WRONG!
Let me just tell you, not to brag, but I have done a lot of sewing in the past. Not so much before I got married as after. I sewed blankets, curtains, and stuff for my baby rooms. I found a pattern to make simple cummerbunds and bow ties for toddlers and yep, you guessed it, I made a few for my boys and had them matching. I’ve sewn pants, skirts, and dresses for myself and my children. I have helped with costuming for our community theater and made civil war reenactment clothes for my daughter and me. I made alterations (with the help of my mother) to my wedding dress to make it temple ready, and I sewed Charly’s baptism dress). Just to name a few.
The fog I hit was feeling almost like I couldn’t remember what to do. I sat down and opened the thread drawer and found a spool and the matching bobbin. Okay, not so bad. Then I went to change the pressure foot, but couldn’t get the foot to clip onto the post. So I went back to what was there before. Okay, the fog lifted some more.
Joy was not only filling my heart for the times spent at this table but that I was going to help my daughter. This machine was an old friend and we were getting acquainted again.
Then another patch of fog, while helping to lay the pattern and to cut, lining up the arrow with the selvage was something I forgot but remedied.
I put out a large piece of cardboard on the floor in my son’s old room where we pinned and cut out the pattern pieces. I shared how I had a large folding cardboard cutting board that I would put on my bed to do this when her brothers were younger. It has since bit the dust. I almost forgot to teach her about cutting out the notches. I never did myself because I knew a lot more of what I was doing, but I knew she needed to learn how.
The BIGGEST patch of fog was realizing I had told her to sew the wrong pieces together. Now I needed to unpick it. I wasn’t able to get it all done before she needed to leave for school.
Now I’m asking her to explain to her teacher how sorry I was and I was trying to be credible to the teacher that I really do know how to sew, it’s just…(my memory issues really are a pain sometimes).
It’s okay mama, my daughter comforted me. Off she went to school.
With this fog of shame and disappointment still lingering, I stayed up just a little to write that night. As I was finishing I heard a bump like something fell on my daughter’s room floor, so I went to check on her.
Amongst the fog that was already thick, there was a rock that I stumbled over on my trail as I discovered my daughter had made a bad choice. I’m not going to share what was done as that is personal and I believe in the ability to repent and be forgiven.
I had some friends who found me, picked me up, brushed off the dust and bandaged my cuts, with loving words of encouragement, offering a listening ear, and explained the loving act of their daughters who were worried and tried to help even further.
This family has been dear friends from the near beginning of our living in this town. They have been a great help to our family in so many ways. These are the type of people who “Scatter Sunshine all along the way…” (#230 in the LDS Hymnbook).
There are things to work through. We just need to lean on the Lord, and good friends. Agency is a wonderful gift. One we can often forget when dealing with others.
This trail of being a mother of a teenaged girl has plenty of bumps and turns, but being a mother to this girl means the world to me. I truly love her so much and am glad to be called her mother.
I am grateful for the opportunity to repent and to be forgiven. I wasn’t the best child to my parents and sister to my siblings. I know I have made MANY mistakes with raising my children. I’ve not always been a good example to my brothers and sisters of the church.
I especially have not been a good child of our Heavenly Parents. Yet, I have been granted forgiveness of many things but have a lot to work through and improve. He never gives up on me, always willing to pick me up and help me along.
I am so grateful for the light given to lighten my path and the ONE who can and has lifted the fog in my life many times.
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