Strength

Maybe I am a broken record. I don't know. I just feel such a need to focus on the importance of women - strong, faithful women. I think too many times we feel unimportant, imperfect, and not useful enough. I know I do. So maybe my focus is really a self-indulgent way to strengthen myself. But I feel compelled by it. We NEED to know how important we are. We need to be good. We need to be strong. And most importantly, we need to be actively engaged in good things - raising our families, giving service, being righteous. We need to know of our importance and live it. We need to view ourselves in terms of our potential and the good we do, and not by our weaknesses and shortcomings. In doing so, I think we will be more motivated, willing, and able to do be active in making the world better. In that light, here is a quote I heard the other day and loved:

"Dear sisters, our beloved associates in this work, in “such a time as this” may I plead with you never to underestimate or undervalue your divine role both as personal, powerful contributors to the kingdom of God and as the nurturers and benefactors of His “little ones,” who will yet have such a divine impact on the unfolding of this work. I fear that virtually nothing—or at least not much—that the world says to you acknowledges your divine role as women. I am reminded that throughout the creation sequence of Genesis God viewed His work, including the creation of man, and called it “good.” But for the one and only time in that creation story He then said something was “not good.” He said it was not good that man should be alone. In short the Creation, even with Adam, was incomplete. Here I invoke President Gordon B. Hinckley’s language: “As His final creation, the crowning of His glorious work, He created woman. I like to regard Eve as His masterpiece after all that had gone before, the final [great] work before He rested from His labors.” I join my testimony to President Hinckley’s in that assessment. Surely it must have been at this point, with so much that was “good” having been done and having remedied the one thing that was “not good,” He could say after Eve’s arrival it was all “very good.” In this great eternal work women have carried the torch of faith and family from the beginning. The need for that torch to burn brightly and dispel the darkness has never been greater than “in this time.” Little wonder that the Prophet Joseph said, “If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.” The scriptures speak of women being “elect.” What a powerful doctrinal and covenantal term! And who “elects” you? You do!—and so does God Himself, who has all the joy and delight of a father in you as His daughter, you who pass on light and hope, pass on life itself and a glorious gospel legacy until the work is finished." - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland