Being a "Mormon" woman

There are women members of our church who are dissatisfied that we do not have the priesthood. I am not one of those. I am satisfied, even grateful for the blessings of being a woman in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In fact I would rather have the responsibilities that come with being a woman than a priesthood holder. I get to have children. I get to nurture those children. I get to serve with other sisters in my ward and stake. I get to be taught by and teach women, men, and children. You don't have to be a member of our church to have and nurture children. That is an inherent gift given to women. I appreciate the current revelation given to our prophet and apostles that teaches of this god-given gift. From The Family: A Proclamation to the World, a revelation read to the women of the church, September 1995, the leaders of the church declared that "The family is ordained of God...By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners." What a glorious plan.

Although women do not hold the priesthood, we do teach and serve. Two weeks ago, I spoke in our semi-annual stake conference. Priesthood leaders and women prepared talks and shared them with the members of our stake. My stake consists of 11 wards. My ward is the people I attend church with weekly. I had the opportunity to study, pray, ponder, and share a talk during the Sunday session on Coming Unto Christ by Becoming as a Little Child. During my preparation I was taught by the spirit and was able to share by the spirit during the meeting. Following is that talk.

Come Unto Christ by Becoming as a Little Child
As a mother of two young children, I was in Walmart shopping for dish soap, diapers, and other necessities. I had my one year-old daughter in the seat of the cart and my three year-old daughter in the basket of the cart, because even though the universal signs on the cart say that it’s unsafe, I needed to keep track of her. My one year-old daughter demonstrated that she did not enjoy the shopping trip by screaming and throwing out anything she could reach. My three year-old was standing up in the cart when a lady passed by and laughed and pointed at the floor by my feet. Right then I slipped on the stream of dish detergent that was oozing onto the floor out of the bottle my three year-old in the cart was standing on. I had almost everything on my list when I left the full shopping cart in the cough medicine aisle and walked out with one child on each hip and all three of us crying.

I could not understand why Christ would ask us to become as little children. They whine, have tantrums, ask why, talk back, and bathe themselves and their friends with mud after they discover how to turn on the hose in the back yard.

Here is the account from Matthew 18 about Jesus teaching that we must become as little children. “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:1-4).

I also used to wonder why we grow up if Jesus wants us to become as little children. But notice that He doesn’t say to become a child, but to be converted and become as little children and humble ourselves. The word “as” in this phrase is a simile where two things are being compared. We are being compared to a child. So what is different about adults and children?

Our family likes to go on walks. While my husband and I and the teenagers walk slowly, our seven year-old son, walks, skips, trails behind, runs ahead. He doesn’t just go on a boring walk. He is excited about life.

Many of us have experienced having a small child respond to a picture of Jesus with reverence and awe.

And when I asked my friend and my mom about the admirable attributes of children, they both said that children forgive easily.

What are the attributes of a child that Christ wants us to develop?

King Benjamin teaches us “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19).

Children are teachable and trusting. But children are not perfect. They make mistakes.

When I was a little girl, we lived next door to an older couple, Phil and Eleanor. They didn’t have any children. But they did have a cat. One day I wanted to play with their cat, so I took my little brother over to their house. We knocked on their door, but they weren’t home. As we walked by their garage, I heard the cat meowing inside. Phil and Eleanor didn’t have an automatic garage opener and neither did we. My brother and I knew how to use the handle to lift up the garage. I decided that’s what we should do so we could play with the cat. I knew that we shouldn’t, because it wasn’t our house, but they weren’t home and I really wanted to play with the cat. So my brother helped me. We lifted open the garage and the cat ran out between our feet and down the street and around the corner.

As we ate lunch, I did not feel good. My food tasted awful and I wasn’t hungry. I was afraid I had lost Phil and Eleanor’s cat. But I didn’t want to tell them, and I didn’t want to tell my mom. My mom could tell something was wrong, and when she asked me, I told her what happened. Then in a sweet and loving way she said I needed to do the thing I did not want to do. I needed to go and tell Phil and Eleanor that I lost their cat. I cried. My mom said she would go with me, but that I needed to tell them what happened. Walking up their front porch was like torture. Every step I took was heavy. I knocked. Eleanor came to the door. I told her what I had done. Then she laughed and opened the screen door so I could see that the cat had come home. My heart was light and happy after that. I didn’t know that cats find their way back home, and I didn’t know that Eleanor would still like me after I’d done something wrong. I also didn’t know that I would feel so much better after I admitted what I had done.

As a child, I was teachable. I’m grateful for a mom who taught me and helped me to experience the joy of repentance.

When I was a little girl, I had tantrums. If I yelled or talked back to my mom or fought with my brothers, she sent me to my room to think about what I’d done. I would stomp to my room and slam the door, then I would cry and think about what it would be like to live in a different family that loved me. After a while, my mom would come back in and talk with me and tell me that she loved me. I knew that she would come every time. She would open her arms to me. I trusted her. She knew how to teach me like it says in Doctrine and Covenants 121, “Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved lest he esteem thee to be his enemy” (D&C 121:43).

As we are teachable, our hearts are turned to Jesus Christ as mine was to my mom. Imagine Christ’s arms open to you, ready to teach you and forgive you. Elder Eyring shared an experience of when he became as a little child: He says, “Like you, I have felt what King Benjamin meant when he said that we could become like a little child before God. I have prayed, as you have, to know what to do when choices that I faced would have eternal consequences. Over many years I have seen a recurring pattern in the times when the answers to such a prayer have come most clearly. Once, for instance, I prayed through the night to know what I was to choose to do in the morning. I knew that no other choice could have had a greater effect on the lives of others and on my own. I knew what choice looked most comfortable to me. I knew what outcome I wanted. But I could not see the future. I could not see which choice would lead to which outcome. So the risk of being wrong seemed too great to me. I prayed, but for hours there seemed to be no answer. Just before dawn, a feeing came over me. More than at any time since I had been a child, I felt like one. My heart and my mind seemed to grow very quiet. There was a peace in that inner stillness. Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself praying, ‘Heavenly Father, it doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t care anymore what I want. I only want that Thy will be done. That is all that I want. Please tell me what to do.’ In that moment I felt as quiet inside as I had ever felt. And the message came, and I was sure who it was from. It was clear what I was to do. I received no promise of the outcome. There was only the assurance that I was a child who had been told what path led to whatever He wanted for me…Only when my heart has been still and quiet, in submission like a little child, has the spirit been clearly audible to my heart and mind” (Ensign, May 2006).
To come unto Christ as a little child, we serve, we ask, we accept his answers, and we obey.

This is also how we can be better parents and bring our children unto Christ. Before we took our first child home from the hospital, the nurse had us sign a bunch of paper work, then she left our daughter on the bed and walked out of the room. My husband and I looked at each other. I didn’t know what to do next. I was now physically and spiritually responsible for this child. Over time we sort of figured it out. She grew. She was happy most of the time. We would let her stay up until we went to bed until that didn’t seem to be working. So we prayed and counseled together and decided we’d have a night time routine where she went to bed before us. It took some work, but we were all happier.

Children have no control over their lives. When you put them in their car seats, they may not know if you’re going to the store or driving sixteen hours to Grandma’s. Adults run the world. For children to be happy and thrive, they need consistency. They need to know what to expect. As parents we need to have our hearts ready to learn and be taught how to provide what our children need. And that teaching or training of our children takes time.

My sister-in-law was having trouble with her son. She went into her bedroom, prayed, and then opened up the scriptures. The pages fell open to Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” What impressed her this time was the part, “and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” She imagined herself in heaven looking down on her son as an old man as he finally followed his training, and then she would shout for joy.

We can find answers as we visit the temple and ponder our children and their needs. We can pray. We must pray. Prayer is the way we speak to our Father, the way we show our willingness to come unto Christ.

This school year, we’ve been blessed to have a foreign exchange student from Switzerland, living with us. At the beginning of December, her parents mailed a package so it would have plenty of time to arrive before Christmas. A week before Christmas it still hadn’t come. She had mailed a package to her family from here to Switzerland, and it arrived in less than two weeks. We decided to pray that the package would come. In every family prayer we prayed for her package. Two days before Christmas it still hadn’t come. When she talked to her parents on skype, they said they didn’t know where it was. They’d spoken to the postal service and it seemed to be lost. It would not come for Christmas. On Christmas Eve morning I knelt by my bed and I prayed. I said the usual words about the package coming, but I didn’t know how it could happen. I decided that I would just need to accept that it wasn’t going to come, and that this was a prayer that would not be answered in the way I wanted. I wanted our foreign exchange daughter to see that prayers could be answered. But then in that moment I submitted myself to the will of the Father. A change came into my heart and I said to Heavenly Father, “I know you can do this. I know you can make a package get here for Christmas. But if that isn’t what is supposed to happen, that’s okay. I accept that.” I wasn’t believing. I wasn’t hoping. I knew He could make it happen, but that it didn’t need to happen. I wanted to tell my children that the package probably wouldn’t come and that would be okay. But in family prayer, one of our children again prayed that the package would come.

In the late afternoon, the children and I were watching a movie in the basement. My husband was upstairs preparing a Christmas Eve meal. The doorbell rang and I kept watching the movie.

Later that night when my husband and I were in bed, he told me that the package had arrived. At 4:30 pm on Christmas Eve. That was the doorbell I’d heard.

I wrapped it up and put it under the Christmas tree. Our foreign exchange daughter was surprised and happy to receive that package from her family in Switzerland. And I was happy that Heavenly Father answered our prayers. At the last possible moment, he got that package to our house.

Come unto Christ. Pray. Repent. Forgive. Be teachable. Let Him open his arms to you. Come as a child, an adult, a parent, a son, a daughter, a grandma, young, old or in between.

Come.
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In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.