All About the Argyles

(I found this today in a blog I follow and felt it was worth remembering.)    My old Stake President was a Phychologist. He spoke once to us mothers, and said something that really stuck with me.  He said to imagine that each of us is an iceburg. When you look out across the ocean, you see the top 10% of the iceburgs in the water. That 10% is the part that we want others to see. He said that it is important to remember that each of us has another 90% that we're "hiding" below the surface. He told us "Never compare your 90% to someone else's 10%. It's not a fair comparison." Isn't that great? We all show our best selves, our best 10%, but we all struggle with different things, and we all have weaknesses and insecurities. The trick is to remember that what we usually "see" in others is their best 10%, too.

This past mother's day I wrote a letter to thirteen terrific ladies who have shaped me and what kind of mother and woman I am. Here is an excerpt. I have been thinking about writing this note to you for some time.   As Mother’s Day was drawing closer this year and because of some things I read recently in my own patriarchal blessing, I have been thinking about you and what a blessing you have been to me. I don’t know whether it was because Heavenly Father knew I would need good female role models with me throughout my life or perhaps I expressed concern to him before I came to earth that I would have the cards stacked against me, but I think you were a compensating factor in my life.   You are a gift from an all knowing God. From the time I joined the church as a youth, I have been blessed   with extraordinary women who have “shown me the way”:  the way to be a righteous woman of God, a devoted wife, and a loving parent. I am certainly not the p...