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Pages Home About Love Serve Teach Recipes Other Resources Subscribe Wednesday, February 5, 2020 LAST POST: You Are Still "In Process" PREFACE: Dear OFM Readers, I am sure you have noticed that I have posted less and less as time has gone by, and maybe you have forgotten that I ever blogged on a regular basis. As happens to all of us, we have seasons of life that ebb and flow. My season on life where my focus was completely on my children and family has moved into something different. And while I miss those days, and ache for the time when my children filled my world, and I filled theirs, I also know that the path I am now on is inspired by the Lord, and is His new plan for my life. This past September, almost one year from the day my husband suffered a terrifying stroke (Don't worry-- he completely recovered!), I embarked on a terrifying and exciting journey of personal education by going back to college to earn a degree in Music Education with a Choral Emphasis. It has been extremely difficult and busy , but also hugely rewarding. Though I am gone to classes 5 days a week, I do still homeschool my children, but now they are more independent in their studies using the Robinson Curriculum. We all miss spending so much time together, but I am also grateful that they have each other, that they have graduated older siblings at home to help them, and that their dad works remotely from home. So far, it is working well, and I am so grateful that they are still able to be home together. This last post is something I wrote recently to a sweet young mother who was feeling overwhelmed, and who was struggling to see the greater purpose in the day to day drudgery of life. My heart went out to her, and I realized that my work encouraging other mothers has come to an end, for now. But I wanted to share those final thoughts with all of you, dear readers, who have stuck with me through these nearly 13 years of my blogging here at . I hope that this post, and the posts I have written over the years, will continue to bless and uplift other mothers who have a desire to give God their best efforts in mothering their own children. With so much love, Mama Rachel Dear Overwhelmed Young Mother, Sometimes we just need a change of perspective. You ARE in the middle of getting an education— the most difficult education we can get in this life. As a mom of 13 children who is coming out of the other side of the child bearing years (my oldest is 26, youngest is 5), I can tell you that it is a difficult season of life, but it doesn’t last as long as you think it will. Is it exhausting? Yes. Those years of giving birth, nursing babies, changing diapers, and potty training blur together as I look back, and yet I miss it. I got good at it. I learned a TON! I became an expert on that phase of life, and then it all shifted and changed. The level of difficulty went up, but in a completely different way. But it is ALL needed. It is ALL part of God’s plan for His daughters who are called to be mothers. I know you get tired of hearing things like “This too shall pass,” or “It goes by so fast!” I know you feel like you are drowning. I know that the daily tasks can become heavy drudgery some days. I know that you don’t know who you are anymore. But please consider that you are still in process. YOU ARE STILL IN PROCESS. God is forming you into the amazing Queen and fantastic woman He plans for you to become. Motherhood is the refining process. You are existing in your melted form right now. The dross is separating from the pure silver. It hurts. It’s uncomfortable. It looks bleak and never-ending. But you are still in the flames. Your beautiful, shining, solid form is coming . YOU, the real you, is coming soon. She is being formed RIGHT NOW. Hold on, trust the Master, move through the fire. You will be DAZZLED by who you become. Love, Mama Rachel Posted by Rachel Keppner at 2:39 PM 2 comments: Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels: encouragement , life lessons , motherhood Friday, October 18, 2019 "Be not conformed to this world" Me and my youngest "babies" being silly When my husband and I were married as a young couple back in 1992, we were committed to each other and to the covenants we made in the temple, but we did not fully understand the Lord’s plans for our family. The Proclamation on the Family had not yet been created, but I am grateful that we began our marriage with a firm conviction that parenthood was the most important work we could do in this life. We both had strong testimonies that “Children are an heritage of the Lord”, and we knew we were on the right path. Interestingly enough, we began to feel confusion about when we should bring our first child into the world when all of our friends-- who were active, faithful members of the Church-- greatly discouraged us from starting our family while at college. Yet the Spirit had begun prompting my husband and I to not prevent our children from coming in the first few months after our wedding. We were young, and began to wonder if those around us might know something we didn’t. Luckily, when we discussed our future family as a couple, we both knew that the promptings we were having were from the Lord. And so, we prepared to become parents and I became pregnant right away. A few years later, after having one miscarriage, and then two small children immediately thereafter, President Gordon B. Hinckley presented “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” in General Conference, and we felt so grateful that we had followed the impressions of the Holy Ghost and had ignored our seemingly-sophisticated friends. As the early apostles told the followers of Christ in their day, we learned that we should “Be not conformed to this world” and that “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God”. The important convictions we gained from the Lord’s reminders found in The Proclamation were vital to our family right after our first son (our second child) was born. My new baby was six weeks old, and I was driving to my postpartum appointment when I reflected on my nurse-midwife’s question regarding our plans for birth control. As I prayed to the Lord on that short drive, the Spirit impressed my mind strongly with the thought that the Lord needed to send another baby to our family very soon. This surprised me-- our baby was brand new! But the prompting was unmistakable, and we decided to once again put our family size in the Lord’s hands. (We had our third child, a boy, almost exactly thirteen months after our second child.) The passage on welcoming children into a family found in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” has resonated in our family again and again over our 27 years of marriage. “The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force.” Becoming parents is an integral part of our Father in Heaven’s eternal plan for His children. We have been given a wonderful opportunity in this life to become more like Him by having and raising children. Elder L. Tom Perry expressed the importance of marriage and family this way: “What the restored gospel brings to the discussion on marriage and family is so large and so relevant that it cannot be overstated: we make the subject eternal! We take the commitment and the sanctity of marriage to a greater level because of our belief and understanding that families go back to before this earth was and that they can go forward into eternity.” I believe that welcoming children into our eternal families is one of the greatest blessings that the Lord can give us in this life. Elder D. Todd Christofferson emphasized the importance of establishing families in God’s plan: “A family built on the marriage of a man and woman supplies the best setting for God’s plan to thrive—the setting for the birth of chi...