“No other success can compensate for failure in the home.”

Friday I had a really good day at work.  The FDIC has been at my bank conducting a Compliance Exam.  This exam is all mine, I am 100% responsible for the outcome.  They were here for a data validation exam for a week and a half, gone for half a week and then here again for three weeks.  This has been a bit stressful for me, as my days at work have started earlier and gone later than normal.  Chris and the kids have put up with me getting home later than normal and bringing home some of the stress of work.  They were great for me and helped make it easier.  Friday was their exit meeting with the bank executives as well as the compliance executives (my boss and his boss.)  I scored the highest you can score and was complimented by the FDIC for my hard work and the job that I am doing.  This was at 9:30am, I was on cloud nine after that.  It is always nice when your hard work pays off, it's nice to get complimented and it's even more nice when people express their gratefulness for you and the job you are doing. 

Later that day, still on cloud nine I got an email from Ethan's school teacher informing me that he had a rough week in class and in specials.  She is use to his goofiness, but this week was different, he wasn't listening and was being mean in some instances.  This was/is not the kind of email I ever want to get.  Ethan is a smart boy, he really is a sweet boy, so to hear that he is having a hard time at school made me sad.  I was at a loss, what was I suppose to do to help him out?  This has been a big fear of mine with him starting all day school.  I stressed before school even started that he might make the wrong friends and that he would not make the best choices...  I forwarded the email to Chris so he could see what I got and so we could discuss it later at home...  Needless to say, cloud nine soon disappeared...  I now felt like I was free falling instead of floating on a magical happy cloud.  As I drove home I called my mother and talked with her a bit, and then got off the phone and started crying.  Immediately the following quote popped into my head:

“No other success can compensate for failure in the home.”

At this very moment I felt like a bit of a failure as a mother, my son was being mean at school to other students, not listening and getting in trouble in class.  Clearly I wasn't doing something right and now I had to figure it out...  My work day had been so great and now that meant nothing because I felt like I was failing in an even greater area, a more important one.  I listened to a general conference talk on the way home, hoping to inspire me and uplift me...  It worked a bit, but I think it didn't really hit me until I was attending the temple Saturday that I totally got the reason why that quote would come to my mind.

It's not that I'm a failure at home, it's not that I'm the worst mother ever, it's not even close to that...  It was just a reminder that my greatest successes will always come from my home, they will not come from my work life.  Yes, I have had many great successes at work, especially this past six months and I'm very grateful for them, do not get me wrong...  But my greatest joy and happiness will always come from what happens with my family and the things we accomplish as a family!  They, my family, are the reason I'm here.  They are the reason I wake up every day and have reason to be thankful.  They are the reason my cup runneth over with blessings that could never be counted.  They are the reason for everything I do in my life.  They are the reason for my work success, they are the smiles that know how to melt my heart.  The joy I feel within my heart when they have an accomplishment of their own, far surpasses the joy I feel for my own accomplishments.  

When that quote first popped into my mind I was discouraged and sad, but now I see it a whole new way.  It was a gentle reminder that my family means more than anything else in this life, and that while my temporal successes are great, they are not anything in comparison to my family and home successes. 

It's always nice to be reminded of where we really stand in the whole realm of things, even better when we actually get it!