{"id":841,"date":"2013-05-10T10:07:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T15:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lovingonme.com\/?p=841"},"modified":"2017-04-09T14:46:25","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T19:46:25","slug":"motherhood-my-most-important-aha-moment-in-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/2013\/05\/10\/motherhood-my-most-important-aha-moment-in-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Motherhood: My Most Important \u2018Aha!\u2019 Moment in Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Crystal<\/a>Motherhood, one of the most joyous, rewarding and challenging roles we as women will ever play.\u00a0 Joyous, well of course!\u00a0 It\u2019s joyous from the moment that you lay eyes on your new bundle of joy right?\u00a0 Rewarding, certainly!\u00a0 Rewarding because there\u2019s nothing more beautiful than being blessed with the gift of having someone who you can love unconditionally.\u00a0 Challenging to say the least!\u00a0 Challenging because you now bear the greatest responsibility of all: shaping the life of another human being.\u00a0 But hey, no pressure right?<\/p>\n

Now, I have to admit, I couldn\u2019t spout all of this off when I first gave birth to my son; beginning with that joyous piece and least of all understanding the real scope of \u201cchallenging\u201d.\u00a0 Whew!\u00a0 Now that we\u2019ve gotten that out-of-the-way, I\u2019m sure many of you reading this will agree with me that we feel so much pressure to smile and pretend to be super happy when we first give birth but the simple truth is that\u2019s not always the case.\u00a0 Of course we love our children from the start, but sometimes instead of being joyous and happy, you\u2019re just plain scared and overwhelmed.\u00a0 The joy, reward and challenge concepts all develop over time and we must begin to give ourselves, and other women, permission to grasp all of this in our own time.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to abandon the fa\u00e7ade of being perfect and start being honest.\u00a0 The simple idea of honesty is so freeing.<\/p>\n

For the longest, I thought I was the only who felt this way.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because I felt like my \u201csituation\u201d was unique.\u00a0 I soon came to learn that it<\/i> wasn\u2019t and that I<\/i> wasn\u2019t alone.\u00a0 Here\u2019s my story.\u00a0 I gave birth to my son when I was a mere 21 years old.\u00a0 That in itself was scary enough.\u00a0 So much so, that for the first few years of my son\u2019s life, I couldn\u2019t freely connect with the joy that I should have been feeling because I spent most of my time paralyzed emotionally by all of the fear that comes along with figuring out how I would provide for my son while working 40 hours per week, caring for a mother recently diagnosed with cancer and oh yeah, carrying a full load of classes.\u00a0 Sleep was a luxury, money was scarce, and the bright future that would lie ahead of me wasn\u2019t in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning!\u201d\u00a0 And boy did my joy arrive.\u00a0 As the years passed, life began to smooth out or so I thought.\u00a0 My mom beat her cancer battle, I graduated college and found myself on the receiving end of an amazing marriage proposal from my now husband.\u00a0 You see, things were really beginning to look up.\u00a0 I was even able to land a job with a Fortune 100 company!\u00a0 And then, the unthinkable happened, I was diagnosed with cancer.\u00a0 Wow- I felt like once again, the proverbial rug had been snatched from under my feet.\u00a0 Little did I know, this was the beginning of my awakening; my aha moment was on its way.<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/a><\/p>\n

How does this all tie back to motherhood?\u00a0 Well, I\u2019m about to tell you.\u00a0 As is the case with everyone else, my cancer diagnosis came with thoughts of all the \u201cwhat ifs\u201d.\u00a0 What if this?\u00a0 What if that?\u00a0 In the midst of all of this questioning that would keep me up at night, I woke up in tears one night to a major epiphany.\u00a0 It was the most profound aha moment I\u2019d ever had.\u00a0 I\u2019m lying in bed and the tears began to flow when I realized that all of the sadness and shock that came along with finding out that I was pregnant at 20 and giving birth at 21 was all for a reason.\u00a0 Reasons that I couldn\u2019t quite understand at the time.\u00a0 You see, in the midst of my cancer battle, I found out that having children would now become difficult to impossible as one of the side effects of my treatment regimen.\u00a0 And at that very moment the tears flowed and the heavens opened up as I realized this: my son was born exactly when he was supposed to be!\u00a0 I had no idea in 1999 when I gave birth to him, that I would face circumstances four years later that may have prevented me from ever being blessed with him.\u00a0 What a realization!\u00a0 I\u2019m grateful that God gave him to me when he did.<\/p>\n

So back to the joy, rewards and challenges.\u00a0 Although giving birth for many of you may be different in that you weren\u2019t 21 or dealing with the host of battles that I faced, but you\u2019ve faced other challenges that made your path to motherhood happiness just as challenging.\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019re dealing with the balance of kids and a demanding career, or maybe it\u2019s a husband that doesn\u2019t carry his end of the childcare load, or it could be a million other issues that block your path to connecting with the sheer joy of motherhood.\u00a0 No matter your situation, take some time to center yourself, allow yourself time to feel what you need to and to ultimately connect with the purpose for each part of your life.\u00a0 Appreciate the journey.\u00a0 Once you do, trust me you\u2019ll be able to see all the joy, reap all the rewards and meet the challenges with faith, courage and fearlessness!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s to moments of internal celebration, powerful epiphanies and peace this Mother\u2019s Day.\u00a0 Cheers!<\/p>\n

\"King<\/a>Crystal King is a proud wife and mom who draws her energy from loving her family. She is committed to making a difference through supporting and empowering others. Crystal is Sr. Manager of Philanthropy for JC Penney, working to build on the organization’s legacy of giving back. She serves as a liaison to the company’s non-profit partners across America. A true food connoisseur, in her limited \u00a0spare time she indulges in cooking, baking and dining out.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Motherhood, one of the most joyous, rewarding and challenging roles we as women will ever play.\u00a0 Joyous, well of course!\u00a0 It\u2019s joyous from the moment that you lay eyes on your new bundle of joy right?\u00a0 Rewarding, certainly!\u00a0 Rewarding because there\u2019s nothing more beautiful than being blessed with the gift of having someone who you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sharing_disabled":false,"switch_like_status":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[204998052,114917237],"tags":[1675010,204997714,5235347,74649,122792808,4089,2130188],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/crystal-and-lyman-camera-2-1.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eAxC-dz","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8987,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions\/8987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}