My Thoughts on New Year's Eve 2014

This last year has come and gone so quickly. Today, as I have looked back on the past year, I have had a lot of emotions. I woke up in the middle of the night last night in a panic (something that isn't that abnormal for me over the last couple of years). I started to worry about everything and everyone. I got myself into such an anxious mood that I ended up awake for the next two hours trying to finish reading my Book of Mormon (I am 45 pages from finishing and if I don't finish it will be my first time in a decade to have not read my Book of Mormon all the way through in a year's time). But eventually I fell asleep with a child in one arm and my scriptures in the other. When I woke up this morning, I decided that today I would definitely finish reading the last 45 pages. But, then life happened..children need attention, laundry needs doing, meals need making, etc. I have decided that it's just not going to happen this year...and THAT'S OKAY! Which leads me to all my panic, anxiety, and emotions about this last year. In so many ways I feel like I have failed on so many things. My house isn't that much more organized (a goal I set every year), I still haven't written a book (a goal I've had forever), I still have weight to lose from having six babies, I still struggle every single day to remember to say my morning and night prayers, I'm obviously still struggling to read my scriptures every single day the way that I should, I didn't visit teach like I should have this year (I had way too many drop off letters/gift kind of "visits"), I wasn't a very good friend to a lot of people, I have way to many bad mother moments, I didn't share the gospel as much as I should've, etc, etc... The list could go on and on. But, in my whole pile of endless guilt that I keep accumulating in my mind, I had a couple of other thoughts come to my heart. Thoughts that were not from me, nor from a place of failure, despair, or guilt that regularly consumes my mind. Instead, they came from a place in my heart that is occupied and reserved for divine messages from a loving Heavenly Father. A Father who is trying to teach me about repentance, change, faith, and grace. It is this kind of message that fills me with hope. Hope in tomorrow. Hope in the five beautiful children and amazing husband that I love more than life itself. Hope in friends and family, and most importantly, hope in myself.