Washing Feet

This week, I had a touching experience I wanted to share.

The girls were playing outside, neither with shoes. They wandered into the lot next to us (they do this often, because it is empty and no one has bought it yet) to pick the weed flowers. As they wandered farther, they came into a patch of little pricklies and, because they were barefoot, got stuck.

I came and rescued them, but they already had pokies and slivers all over the bottoms of their cute little feet. I pulled them out of Parker's feet (the poor thing, it hurt and she did not want me to do it) while Ashtyn got most of them out of hers.

When I took them inside, their feet were still hurting, so I mixed together lavender and coconut oil to help. Before putting it on their sores, though, I had to get the dirt off. I took a wet rag and gently wiped the dirt away, putting the lavender on and then snuggling them.

As I washed the dirt off their feet, I couldn't help but draw the parallel to Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. As this thought came to mind, I was instantly filled with the Spirit telling me that what I am doing now matters.

I have had a rough time of it, emotionally, lately. I have been feeling overwhelmed and tired, feeling that I have not been my best as a mother.

As I washed their feet, though, and helped them through this rough little experience for them, I caught a glimpse of the importance of mothers.

I am not a perfect mother. I get impatient and don't always react the way I want. I let them watch too much TV at times and sometimes their breakfast consists of an apple with a string cheese because that's what they can get themselves. I see my flaws and I know I want to be a better mother, but it isn't always something I can do.

But I know that both my girls know I love them. I know they come to me when they need something and I know I am doing my best. A lot of the things I worry about don't matter.

What does matter is how I love them and how I let them feel God's love through me. And sometimes, that's as simple as washing their feet.

Things I Want to Accomplish Before Age 30

I recently watched a YouTube video similar to this topic and it got me thinking about some of the things I want to accomplish in the next few years (which, since I'm 25, I thought 30 would be a good goal). Here is a list of things I want to do.

-Have four kids. Ben and I are pretty sure we want to have a total of four kids (it could always change, but it's the current plan). We are going to have our third in August and then two to three years after that, we'll have our last one. Which means I will probably be done having kids before age thirty.

-Travel outside the US. On our honeymoon, Ben and my cruise did stop in Ensenada, Mexico and it was the best part of our honeymoon. It was a blast! We want to travel to Brazil for the Rio temple in a couple years and after that, we probably want to go to Ireland (Brazil is for Ben, Ireland would be for me).

-Write a novel. This is something I want to do, but right now is not really the best time for me to do it. As I finish having babies and move out of the baby phase, I want to work daily writing into my schedule and begin writing and hopefully publishing novels (or nonfiction books, we'll see how it goes).

-Pay off our house. We have a slightly unrealistic goal of paying off our house in three years. Currently, we're not on track to do that, but we are okay paying it off in the next five years instead (we still have some ideas for reaching our three year goal, it just might not be in our control to do that).

Those are the big ones that I immediately think of! I am excited to see what the next few years go and what Ben and I can accomplish together.