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Continue ShoppingThe Blessing of Being a Woman in the Latter-days (Divine Nature of Women Series 4 of 7)
Dear Reader,
One of my uncles spent the majority of his life in another church. A few years before he died, he and his wife decided they wanted me to come and visit them for a week, two years in a row. He was not an uncle I’d known particularly well, so that time is really special to me.
While visiting them, I attended church with him and his wife, and afterwards, my uncle asked me what top three things about the LDS Church did I love so much, and pulled out a pen and notepad to take notes.
My uncle's church was very different than ours. In appearance, it had many similar attributes: pews, a pulpit, religious symbols, theirs happened to have a big cross in the back, and hymn books. It wasn't until we were into the service that the difference really started to become apparent.
Their hymn books held many of the same songs that are in our hymn books, but words like “Heavenly Father,” and “Jesus Christ” had all been replaced with words like “mother earth.” They didn’t speak of Christ in their sermons, they spoke politics, and the big cross at the back of their chapel, a leftover from the Christian denomination that came before them. So, while I enjoyed my time with my aunt and uncle, and learned a lot about what was important to them, when he asked his question, my answer came immediately:
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Christ is the cornerstone of our beliefs
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We can be saved, resurrected, and reunited with our families after this life because of the atonement of Jesus Christ
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And no matter where you go in the world, these principles will be the same in every chapel, and with the members.
Well, as you might expect, he wasn’t all that interested in one and two, but he latched on to three, wanting to know if I felt like his church had that. I thought about what their service had been like, and couldn’t honestly say yes. Why? Because their focus was on politics, the environment, and looking inward. I couldn’t imagine going to church with them in another state, and finding the same principles of belief, because people change drastically on those topics from place to place.
It made me incredibly grateful for the built-in family environment that I didn’t appreciate until later in life, even though I’d seen it in many states and countries!
This story popped into my head as I was preparing to write this email when I thought about conference, and how lucky I feel that it can be broadcast all over the world, especially when I wasn’t in my home in Utah, able to watch it from the comfort of my couch.
Of course, conference is for everyone, but as a woman, the messages I receive every six months feel invaluable to my progress as a person and as a woman.
I don’t want to take up too much more of your time because we do have conference this week, but also because today’s email, The Blessings of Being a Woman in the Latter-days, could easily turn into a topic that might make a person cringe if it just listed off all the reasons we should be grateful to be a woman now. It’s such a personal, and powerful, topic, that I don’t want to overdo it.
In fact, it was such a tough one for me to approach, that I ended up brainstorming with some friends, and one of them reminded me of this quote:
'Sister Susa Young Gates…once asked her father (Brigham Young) how it would ever be possible to accomplish the great amount of temple work that must be done, if all are given a full opportunity for exaltation. He told her there would be many inventors of labor saving devices, so that our daily duties could be performed in a short time, leaving us more and more time for temple work. The inventions have come, and are still coming, but many simply divert the time gained to other channels, and not for the purpose intended by the Lord.' (Archibald F. Bennett, Improvement Era, Oct. 1952, p. 720)
Which led me to two more quotes here:
“… I believe that the Lord is anxious to put into our hands inventions of which we laymen have hardly had a glimpse” (“When the World Will Be Converted,” Ensign, Oct. 1974, 7, 10). The Lord will provide the means. [6.1.2] - Spencer W. Kimball
“Many brilliant minds and sensitive hearts have harnessed advanced technology to provide personal computer helps to simplify family history work” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1990, 4; or Ensign, Nov. 1990, 6). -Elder Richard G. Scott
To me, these quotes bring to mind things like washing machines, dishwashers, cars, computers, hand-held communication/music/computer devices we can stick on our pockets (also known as cell phones), video conferencing tools (also conveniently found on cells,) online shopping (can be done on cells), etc. Weird to think that some of these devices, as we know them today, haven’t been around all that long, and yet, they make life sooooo much easier.
Now, here’s where they start to become tricky, because, yes, these things make life easier, but all of them were quoted above as a way and a means to help us do temple work, family history work, and participate fully in the gospel. (Which we’ve been promised will make our lives easier to live, happier.) But again, I know everyone is in different places in their lives, and this isn’t meant to make anyone feel like they’re not doing all that they can.
That said, as someone who can do more, I liked being able to sit back and think of all the things I’m grateful for as a woman in this day and age.
For me, I feel grateful:
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To have male and female colleagues who respect me and encourage me in my ideas to help improve our company
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To have a car that can connect to my vehicle so I can listen to podcasts and audiobooks on my 45 minute (one-way) drive to and from work
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That I don’t have to wash all my dishes by hand (bleh!)
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Or my laundry for that matter (I’ve done it before, and not only did it take forever, I also rubbed my skin raw and right off in some places. Not cool.)
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