Someday you'll be the mom of a missionary

From the time my boys were babies, I have told them that someday they'll serve missions for our church.  It's what I want.  It's what we all want.

Now though, some of my best friends are sending their eldest sons on missions.  I feel like I'm sliding down a steep incline with nothing to grab to stop the fall.  Noooooooooooooooo!  Besides his ability to reach things off of high shelves, I see little upside to Braeden getting older.

My heart is with Stephanie.  Her son is leaving today.  Today.  We were talking the other day about how hard it is, but how it is really and truly what we want.  How could we have gotten ourselves into this mess?  She said, "Someone should have been telling us all along, 'someday you'll be the mom of a missionary.'"

When I was pregnant with Braeden, towards the end, I was enormous.  And conspicuous.  I felt like the freakiest freak in all of Provo.   One day I was at the grocery store and the thought occurred to me that every single person I saw had at one time been inside their mother.  How could something so universal be so personal and momentous to me?

It's the same with sending children off into the world.  How many millions of mothers have done the same?

It's not easy to birth a baby.  It takes planning and patience, courage and pain. There's some suffering.

It's not easy to send them on a mission, to birth a man, responsible and righteous with experiences that can't be duplicated in any other way.  It takes planning and patience, courage and pain.  There's some suffering.

But over the world, mothers keep doing it.

Since when have mothers flinched from challenges when their children's best interests are at stake?