Thank you

I skipped church the week before the baby was born — couldn’t fit into anything Sunday-appropriate, couldn’t bear the thought of one more person making a comment about how I’m still pregnant, refused to walk the halls during RS instead of sitting in an uncomfortable room that is ALWAYS 10 degrees warmer than it should be, especially for a bunch of menopausal women, who comprise the vast majority of our group. Anyway.

My mom didn’t skip church, and the lesson in RS was about the Restoration of the Gospel, and talk amongst the class goers turned to Joseph Smith, and how valiant he must have been in the preexistence, and how he must have been prepared for his calling prior to coming to earth. The teacher then asked what that meant for us — because our presence here in the last days implies a great degree of valiance as well, and we were prepared for our missions as well. One sister raised her hand and said that she (a composer) felt that she had been schooled in music in the preexistence, and that she had a hard time reconciling the fact that despite these “fantastic” gifts she has been given, she still has to do dishes and laundry and the menial tasks that keep her home running smoothly.

My mom began to squirm in her seat at this point. She is the Stake RS president, and, I think, sometimes thinks people hear from her a little too much. But the teacher is one of her dearest and oldest friends, and my mom’s discomfiture did not escape her notice, so she asked mom what she thought. She said that she never feels more like she is doing what the Lord wants her to do than when she is mothering or teaching. Now, understand, this woman is a gifted musician in her own right; she is incredibly creative in the quilt studio and with a camera, and you have never heard a better public speaker (need a speaker for a youth conference? She’s your woman!). She is vibrant and full of vitality and interesting and funny and intelligent with a vast base of Gospel knowledge and truly, truly wonderful. And she chooses to spend the majority of her time mothering (and, now, grandmothering) and teaching (not a school teacher, just in general) — two jobs that rank at the bottom of the worldly list of prestigious occupations. But those other talents of hers are merely icing, and sweet compensations for her sacrifices. Instead of seeing the “true mission” things — mothering and teaching — as obstacles in her otherwise talented path, she embraces them as her most important God-given mandate. Only in seeing the true order of things does she become more capable of finding legitimate, appropriate outlets for the secondary talents the Lord gave her. I feel the same way — that as important as music is, and has been, in my life, my most important premortal schooling was about raising my family, about teaching others (see, my missions are the same as hers!), about living the Gospel in a cheerful way. And regardless of how we feel about the other things that occupy our time, we cannot deny that the one job given to all women is not to be a CEO, an artist, a musician, a news reporter, a great philanthropist. It is to mother. And I feel certain that in the huge premortal college, our core classes were all the same — we were prepared for the hugest task the Lord could possibly give to any of His children here upon the earth: to raise up the next generation.

Sorry for the hijack. I guess you can tell I feel pretty strongly about this topic!

And when Elder Ballard said that in Conference, I never leapt of the couch, shouting “YES!” because it’s so very true. We run ourselves ragged trying to take care of what we *think* is important that we forget to take time for what really is important.