The Greatest Gift

This past month has given me an opportunity to reflect on the greatest gift that has ever been given to me, that of being a woman.  Just this past week I had the experience of being in the in the delivery room at the birth of our first granddaughter.  Tears came to my eyes as I watched my daughter’s reaction of joy and excitement as her new baby girl drew in her first breath and began to cry. Everyone in the room, nurses and doctor, was a woman, except my son-in-law who the doctor allowed to assist in the delivery because he is a medical student. I listened with interest to all the comments made.  Emotions were expressed by everyone but I noticed the difference between male and female. The females spoke of feelings while the male comments were more clinical. One is not better than the other just different. I realized once again that these feelings we share as women are a gift to us.  Men have to cultivate and work on these tender feelings that we women have an abundance of.

Women share the same divine role. The process of giving birth, however, is not what makes us women.  Rather, it is the compassion to feel as others feel, having charity and a desire to make everything better, the ability to love so deeply that it can be felt, feelings that bring tears to our eyes, joy to our hearts and sorrow to the very depths of our souls. The feelings in that delivery room, both spoken and unspoken, are what make us women. Elder Matthew Cowley taught that “men have to have something given to them [in mortality] to make them saviors of men, 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.” Our divine nature is to comfort, console, strengthen and love unconditionally.  We have been given the gift to feel vicariously what someone else is going through and the wisdom to know what to do to help.  I can think of no greater gift. 

I see all around me sorrowful women who feel that they can not attain womanhood until they have given birth. Though a special dimension it is only a small part of our depth of developing our divine role.  Not everyone in the delivery room that day had given birth, yet we all shared that experience because we all had the same emotional makeup.  Women have the right to feel these emotions and to use these gifts for the benefit of everyone around them.  Some of us must simply find other ways to mother. Everyone needs a woman’s touch in their lives.  Every woman has the natural desire to love and give.

Sheri Dew states. “Our influence comes from a divine endowment that has been in place from the beginning. In the premortal world, when our Father described our role, I wonder if we didn’t stand in wide-eyed wonder that He would bless us with a sacred trust so central to His plan and that He would endow us with gifts so vital to the loving and leading of His children. I wonder if we shouted for joy at least in part because of the ennobling stature He gave us in His kingdom. The world won’t tell you that, but the Spirit will.”

This Christmas season may we all remember the joy of being who we are and the blessings we have been given. It is the time when our feelings are naturally turned to compassion and giving. All around us are those who need to be loved and comforted. Make this time of year a joyful one for everyone by using these feelings and intuitions that we as women naturally have. I truly feel we have been blessed with the best role in life.