In the transition from being single to being married, there is a lot about your identity that shifts. Rather than being a lone person, you become part of a team. When people ask about you, they now ask about you and your spouse. It is not just your life, it is you and your spouse's life. What were once separate are now inseparably connected.
That identity shift has been a big adjustment for me. Especially as a member of a church that is not shy about holding strong beliefs about families and traditional gender roles. (Beliefs that I wholeheartedly share.)
I went from a bold and confident woman, running the show of her individual life and naturally drifting to being a leader; to being a wife and a mother who truly wanted to allow her husband to preside over our family.
So what does that look like? To still be bold and confident, and a leader, while still allowing my husband to preside? I still struggle with that. I have had times that I felt stifled or walked on, and I have had times when I catch myself steamrolling over my husband. Neither of those feel appropriate, and I know that being a strong woman is not a bad thing, so what does a strong woman look like after she gets married?
Maybe that's not a hard question for other people, but it has been for me.
Then, this past General Conference, President Russell M. Nelson gave a talk entitled "A Plea to my Sisters". In this talk he described the kind of woman that the church needs. I loved this talk. I loved it so much that after conference I went through and highlighted all of the characteristics that he listed.
So according to President Nelson, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints needs women who:
- Are organized
- Can organize
- Have executive ability
- Can plan
- Can direct
- Can administer
- Can teach
- Who speak out
- Have the gift of discernment
- Can view the trends in the world and detect those that are shallow and dangerous
- Know how to make important things happen by their faith
- Are courageous defenders of morality and families
- Are devoted to shepherding God's children along the covenant path toward exaltation
- Know how to receive personal revelation
- Understand the power and peace of the temple endowment
- Know how to call upon the powers of heaven to protect and strengthen children and families
- Teach fearlessly
- Share their impressions, insights, inspiration
- Speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils
- Speak as a full and contributing partner as they unite with their husbands in governing their family
- Have a bedrock understanding of the doctrine of Christ
- Use that understanding to teach and help raise a sin-resistant generation
- Can detect deception in all its forms
- Know how to access the power that God makes available to covenant keepers who express their beliefs with confidence and charity
- Have the courage and vision of our Mother Eve
- Take their rightful and needful place in their home, community, and in the kingdom of God, more than they ever have before
I hear that list and I think "YES! THAT is the kind of woman I want to be." That list is a call; reminding women of the critical value that they add. Letting us know that discussions and decisions and efforts are not whole until they have our voice and our influence.
Now on days when I struggle to understand my place, I come to this list, and I pick something and work on it.
And as I have done that, I have felt a resurgence of that strength and boldness I had feared I was losing.
Labels: Faith
