Quotable Quotes

After a long run (my longest ever) I received a complimentary migraine complete with vision loss.  awesome!  So I spent some time on the couch, blinds closed, blanket over my head.  I recovered somewhat and went about my day gingerly.  Tonight is bookclub and I hadn't started the book, "I Am a Mother" by Jane Clayson Johnson.  So, I started it and finished it tonight.  I thought I'd share a few great  quotes:

1. There are seasons in life.  Don't ever let anyone deny you the blessings and joy of one season because they believe you should be in - 0r stay in - another season. - Jane Clayson Johnson

2.  The submission of one's will is placing on God's altar the only uniquely personal thing one has to place there.  The many other things we 'give' are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when we finally submit ourselves by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God's will, we will really be giving something to Him!  It is the only possession which is truly ours to give -Elder Neal A. Maxwell

3. The world can only value mothering to the extent that women everywhere stand and declare that it must be so.  In our hands we hold the power to transform the perception of motherhood.  We should no longer allow a mother to be defined as 'just a Mom'.  It is on her back that great nations are built. - Oprah Magazine

4.  She who can paint a masterpiece or write a book that will influence millions deserve the admiration and the plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose influence will be felt through generations to come, ...long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or shall have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.  In her high duty and service to humanity..., she is co partner with the Creator himself.  

 President David O. McKay

5.  I am like a pencil in God's hand.  That is all.  He does the thinking.  He does the writing.  The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used.  -  Mother Teresa

6.  If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your soul, it is not success at all.  - Anna Quindlen

and lastly, (sorry this was long, but they're all so good)

7.  Any woman who has devoted herself to raising children has experienced the hollow praise that only thinly conceals smug dismissal.  In a culture that measures worth and achievement almost solely in terms of money, the intensive work of rearing responsible adults counts for little.  One of the most intriguing questions in economic history is how this came to be; how mothers came to be excluded from the ranks of productive citizens.  How did the demanding job of rearing a modern child come to be trivialized as baby-sitting?  When did caring for children become a 'labor of love', smothered under a blanket of sentimentality that hides its economic importance?- Ann Crittenden