The Engraving: Mormon Women: Women's Divine Gifts

I love being a woman. I love knowing I am a daughter of God. I love being a wife to a wonderful husband. I love knowing I will be a mother to our son. I love knowing that my husband and I compliment each other with our strengths and weaknesses, but they we help each other become even better.

I've briefly mentioned how priesthood authority works in the home; how men and women are to be different but equal partners. Spencer W. Kimball has said:

In his wisdom and mercy, our Father made men and women dependent on each other for the full flowering of their potential. Because their natures are somewhat different, they can complement each other; because they are in many ways alike, they can understand each other. Let neither envy the other for their differences; let both discern what is superficial and what is beautifully basic in those differences, and act accordingly.
We had full equality as his spirit children. We have equality as recipients of God’s perfected love for each of us. …
Within those great assurances, however, our roles and assignments differ. These are eternal differences—with women being given many tremendous responsibilities of motherhood and sisterhood and men being given the tremendous responsibilities of fatherhood and the priesthood.

I like seeing the progress that women have made in the work force to be considered equal as men if they can meet the same standards. However, I have a great dislike for women who demand equality but then through their own actions become less feminine and more masculine. They are losing a sense of who they inherently are. "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" states, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." Men and women have been given divine gifts. I love what Ezra Taft Benson said:

You [women] were not created to be the same as men. Your natural attributes, affections, and personalities are entirely different from a man’s. They consist of faithfulness, benevolence, kindness, and charity. They give you the personality of a woman. They also balance the more aggressive and competitive nature of a man.
The business world is competitive and sometimes ruthless. We do not doubt that women have both the brainpower and skills—and in some instances superior abilities—to compete with men. But by competing they must, of necessity, become aggressive and competitive. Thus their godly attributes are diminished and they acquire a quality of sameness with man.

Women have been given the responsibilities of motherhood and sisterhood. We have natural gifts of faithfulness, benevolence, kindness, and charity. We are natural nurturers. Elder D. Todd Christofferson said, "Women bring with them into the world a certain virtue, a divine gift that makes them adept at instilling such qualities as faith, courage, empathy, and refinement in relationships and in cultures." Is it any wonder we can be so influential in the lives around us?

Source: Hometown Pasadena

The most significant influence is felt in the home. Elder Christofferson also said, "A woman’s moral influence is nowhere more powerfully felt or more beneficially employed than in the home. ... In all events, a mother can exert an influence unequaled by any other person in any other relationship." Family is the building block of society and governments. Family is where lessons are taught of how to be a citizen, what values are important, how to work with others, and many other lessons both purposefully and accidentally taught. Elder Neal A. Maxwell stated:

When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses?

I know my own mother has been a great influence on me. Greater than anything happening in government. Greater than any peer or school influence. The values she has instilled in me in turn cause me to be a citizen, friend, and student she'd approve of. As David O. McKay said, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” If mothers (and fathers) fail to use their influence at home to teach their children morals, good values, and how to prioritize, the rising generation is left without them as they become join the work force and begin to run the country. Then things start to fall apart.

David O. McKay also taught:

The home is the first and most effective place for children to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self-control; the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no other success can compensate for failure in the home.

Women have a tremendous influence. President Boyd K. Packer said: “The tender hand of the sister gives a gentle touch of healing and encouragement which the hand of a man, however well intentioned, can never quite duplicate.” We are blessed with divine gifts that only we as women naturally have. Men can work and develop such a talent, but for women it is part of who we are.

We frequently here how we women need to support and encourage our husbands, fathers, brothers, sons to fulfill their priesthood responsibilities. We hear how we need to support them as they work to provide for their families. It's all true. However, I heard a story that changed my perspective:

One evening, a man and his wife go to a business dinner of his. At this dinner, people asked the companions what they did. This wife said she was a stay-at-home mother and supported her husband in his job. After saying such a statement, people would lose interest and move on in the conversation. She felt ashamed. She felt like she should say she was college graduate and was working at some prestigious company; then she felt ashamed that she was ashamed of simply being a stay-at-home mother. She loves being a stay-at-home mom and recognize how important such a job is. But she was self-conscious of simply stating that. On the way home from the dinner, her husband was thinking of how his wife does support him in his career and how much she does for him. Then he had an epiphany. Yes, she supports him, but the reason he goes to work every day was so that he could support her in her most important calling of nurturing and raising their children. He supports her so that she could stay home with the children; so that she could be there for them.

Women are just as important as men. Families and societies are greatly blessed to have both men and women. We compliment and complete each other. We are greatly blessed to have the masculine natures of men and the feminine natures of women. As Elder Richard G. Scott said:

In the Lord’s plan, it takes two—a man and a woman—to form a whole. Indeed, a husband and wife are not two identical halves, but a wondrous, divinely determined combination of complementary capacities and characteristics.

Marriage allows these different characteristics to come together in oneness—in unity—to bless a husband and wife, their children and grandchildren. For the greatest happiness and productivity in life, both husband and wife are needed. Their efforts interlock and are complementary. Each has individual traits that best fit the role the Lord has defined for happiness as a man or woman. When used as the Lord intends, those capacities allow a married couple to think, act, and rejoice as one—to face challenges together and overcome them as one, to grow in love and understanding, and through temple ordinances to be bound together as one whole, eternally. That is the plan.

I am so grateful for the knowledge that I am a daughter of God who loves me. I am grateful to be sealed for time and eternity to a wonderful worthy priesthood holder who can bless our children and help them reach for and obtain saving ordinances that will help them become the best individuals they can be. I'm grateful to know that I am just as important and influential in the lives of my children and helping them learn to develop admirable qualities and attributes for the beneficial of themselves, their future family, friends, and society.

Other Resources:

Ballard, M. Russell. "Mothers and Daughters."

Beck, Julie B. “The Vision of Prophets regarding Relief Society: Faith, Family, Relief.”

Benson, Ezra Taft. "Strengthening the Family."

Cardon, Craig A. “A Man of God, A Woman of God.”

Christofferson, D. Todd. "The Moral Force of Women."

Dew, Sheri. "Are We Not All Mothers?"

"Differences Inherent Between Men and Women."

Eyring, Henry B. “Daughters in the Covenant.”

"The Family: A Proclamation to the World."

Holland, Jeffrey R. “Because She is a Mother.”

Howard, F. Burton. "Eternal Marriage."

Hudson, Valerie M. and Richard B. Miller. “Equal Partnership in Marriage.”