I was reading the visiting teaching message the other day (I know, and it's only October 13!), and I read something that stopped me in my tracks.

Because I'm a worrier.

And the focus of most of my worries is my children.

I want, more desperately than I want anything else in the world, to do right by them. I want to somehow compensate for all of their weaknesses and mine and parent them in a more than perfect way so they have fabulous lives full of opportunity and promise and fulfilled dreams.

And guess what? I can't do it.

I forget that all of the time but this quote by President Hinckley reassured me that I shouldn't even try to do it alone.

Never forget that these little ones are the sons and daughters of God and that yours is a custodial relationship to them, that He was a parent before you were parents and that He has not relinquished His parental rights or interest in these His little ones...

What was I thinking when I thought that it was up to me? These children are not really mine to make or break, they are God's. He is at the helm and when I consider that He loves them as much as I do, and that He cares about them as much I care about them, I feel more than reassured. That amount of love and care in their behalf, coupled with Divine wisdom...it seems like the odds are in our favor.

When I shared this with Adam, he pointed out that custodians have to scrape the gum off of things.

Being a custodian isn't so much fun all the time but when I pause to consider what it's all for and whose side I'm on, I guess I can do a little bit of grunt work.