(Sherri Dew): President Gordon B. Hinckley stated
that “God planted within women something divine.” 6 That something is
the gift and the gifts of motherhood. Elder Matthew Cowley taught that “men
have to have something given to them [in mortality] to make them saviors of
men, but not mothers, not women. [They] are born with an inherent right, an
inherent authority, to be the saviors of human souls … and the regenerating
force in the lives of God’s children.” 7
Motherhood is not
what was left over after our Father blessed His sons with priesthood
ordination. It was the most ennobling endowment He could give His daughters, a
sacred trust that gave women an unparalleled role in helping His children keep
their second estate. As President J. Reuben Clark Jr. declared, motherhood is
“as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the Priesthood
itself.”
I will never forget the inexplicable joy and
overwhelming gratitude I had the day I met my first child, David. I had always
loved children growing up, and after getting married was excited to fulfil my
God-given roll to become a mother. However, I can honestly say that I never
expected the journey to be so difficult. In less than 8 years of marriage we
have experienced more than 4 years of infertility, compounded with 6 miscarriages
and many, many unwelcome medical tests. Today, we have our two miracles, but I
do not forget the pain that accompanied the trials that led up to this
blessing.
Sister Dew: “While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity, in
the Lord’s language, the word mother has layers of
meaning. Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her
essence, both God the Father and Adam called
Eve “the mother of all living” 3 —and they did so
before she ever bore a child. Like Eve, our
motherhood began before we were born. Just as worthy men were foreordained to
hold the priesthood in mortality, 4 righteous women
were endowed premortally with the privilege of motherhood. 5 Motherhood is
more than bearing children, though it [includes] certainly that. It is the
essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our
divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us.[1]“
Every
Mother’s Day, and every time this topic is brought up, I cannot help but think
of my oldest sister. She is the oldest and I am the youngest, and I
think that growing up she played a blended role of mother and sister to me. As
I neared adulthood, this shifted in to a blended role of sister and best
friend. She is an incredible, strong, smart, and growing up she always wanted
to marry young, become a mother, and have a lot of children. As the years
rolled by, she was social, gained an education, and became very successful
professionally. Yet, she wasn’t to marry until more than a decade after her initial
desire. Watching her pain every single year crushed me. It has and continues to
move me to tears. She could have chosen to avoid all children and become
bitter, but she didn’t. She chose to be the best aunt a nephew could ask for,
to help underprivileged and abused children, to serve faithfully many years in
the primary, and to always be willing to help an overwhelmed mother with
squirmy, screaming babies at church, during the night, or any time! She has
been a wonderful example to me of faithfulness, and has also helped increase my
sensitivity and caring to women that would love children but have not yet been blessed with them.
(President
Hinckley)[2]: Some who are not married
[or mothers], through no fault of their own, ask whether they will always be denied
the highest degree of glory […] I am confident that under the plan of a loving
Father and a divine Redeemer, no blessing of which you are otherwise worthy
will forever be denied you.
(Sister Dew): For
reasons known to the Lord, some women are required to wait to have children.
This delay is not easy for any righteous woman. But the Lord’s timetable for
each of us does not negate our nature. Some of us, then, must simply find other
ways to mother. And all around us are those who need to be loved and led[…]
Eve set the
pattern. In addition to bearing children, she mothered all of mankind when she
made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened
the way for us to progress. She set an example of womanhood for men to respect and
women to follow, modeling the characteristics with which we as women have been
endowed: heroic faith, a keen sensitivity to the Spirit, an abhorrence of evil,
and complete selflessness. Like the Savior, “who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross,” Eve, for the joy of helping initiate the human
family, endured the Fall. She loved us enough to help lead us.
As daughters of
our Heavenly Father, and as daughters of Eve, we are all mothers and we have
always been mothers.
On this Mother’s Day, and every
Mother’s Day, please take time to celebrate all
Women in their divinely created roll of motherhood. This includes mothers,
grandmothers, aunties, cousins, teachers, neighbors, friends, and more. I know
of many women that have left church crying on Sunday because gifts were made
and handed out only to people with children. Please be sensitive to every woman, especially those waiting on
their righteous desires to be mothers. May every woman be celebrated for the
good that she does as a beloved daughter of God, and may every woman in this
room know how greatly loved that she is by Him. God our Heavenly Father loves
us and wants to guide us as we seek to magnify our Womanhood, and as we are
mothers to all who may feel our strong, gentle, loving influence. In the name
of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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