Visibility

 

 Some times I think I am redundant. The courses I took in school to prepare for a career are no longer taught in school. My profession has changed enough that I could no longer teach it. I was a Girl Scout leader and a teacher for nine to eleven year old girls, but the programs have changed and gone in another direction. Even my children have grown and I don’t need to be a “hands on” parent much any more.

BUT--

In the October, Ensign Magazine we can read,” We have been created in God’s image (see Moses 2:26,27), and we have divine potential. The Prophet Joseph Smith admonished the sisters in Relief Society to “live up to [their] privilege.” With that encouragement as a foundation, sisters in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been taught to live up to their divine potential by fulfilling God’s purposes for them. “As they come to understand who they really are—God’s daughters, with an innate capacity to love and nurture—they reach their potential as holy women.”

“You are now placed in a situation where you can act according to those sympathies which God has planted in your bosoms,” said the Prophet Joseph Smith. “If you live up to these principles how great and glorious! If you live up to your privilege, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates.”

As the General Conference session was approaching I noticed a lot of Internet chatter. A group of women planned to demonstrate outside the conference center to be given the opportunity to hold the priesthood, and become more equal in their eyes to the men in the church! They tried to get tickets to go to the priesthood session but were denied.

One of my young friends was disappointed. She is an editor for a magazine and has a blog that I enjoy reading. A reader commented that it made her feel invisible. I don’t want or need to hold the priesthood, but I do understand the feeling of being invisible.

Rita, another friend, more my age was discussing this on face book. She wrote,

“My thoughts on the subject. Men have to be ordained to be able to do many things that a woman can just do. A woman does not need the Priesthood to get her endowments or be sealed for eternity; nor to be a temple worker. She does not need to be ordained to preach a sermon at church on Sunday, or even at General Conference. She does not even need to be ordained to receive revelations for whatever her stewardship is. On occasion as needed, she can, by the prayer of faith, ask the Lord for help to heal. What am I missing as a woman? Nothing that I need for my particular life. It is not an equality issue. It is a "not identical" issue. I am grateful for a wise God.”
Two of my Virginia friends just returned from Africa. They climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro

They  helped out in an orphanage.  They know who and what they are and interacted with the world on their own level.  I admire them.

Being a new member of my community, I haven’t established many ties. I could go a week without talking to anyone but my husband. Even on Sunday, when I go to church, I can sit and enjoy the music and the spirit of the meeting—then go home invisibly.

As a daughter of God, wishing to reach my potential, what can I do?

1.     Be more open to new experiences

2.     Work towards a long tern goal I haven’t accomplish yet

3.     Become more visible in my world

Well, that’s a start for this month. Tomorrow, I’m off to a small but new challenge