Today's post is going to be a bit more...opinionated (and lengthy)...than usual, but I feel like I really need to share this opinion. I do not want to offend anyone, and I know opinions are going to differ. You are more than welcome to comment and share your opinion, but please be courteous.
There has been much in the media lately about LDS feminist movements (wearing pants to church, praying in General Conference, women holding the priesthood, etc.) I haven't paid much attention until the last couple of weeks.
Call me old-fashioned, but it kind of bothers me.
I had never even thought about the fact that I wear a dress/skirt to church every week and that women have never prayed in General Conference. I honestly had never noticed these things. I have thought about the whole women and the priesthood thing but again, I have never cared that I don't have the priesthood.
To be totally honest, I don't want it.
The more I have thought about this and talked about it with several different people it occurred to me as to WHY these things have never bothered me.
(This is where Jessica's opinion comes into play. If you don't want to hear it, stop reading now. Don't say I didn't warn you.)
The Family: A Proclamation to the World states that "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."
Men and women were placed on this earth for two very important, but very distinct reasons. Men are here to preside and protect. In the Church, they are given the priesthood to help them accomplish that goal. Women are here to have children, and to raise them in righteousness.
HOWEVER!!! Neither of these things can be accomplished alone.
As Elder M. Russell Ballard so eloquently stated in his conference address Saturday morning (to listen click here) neither gender can accomplish their job alone.
"Just as a woman cannot conceive a child without a man, so a man cannot fully exercise the power of the priesthood to establish an eternal family without a woman. In other words, in the eternal perspective both the procreative power and the priesthood power are shared by husband and wife."
The reason these things have never bothered me is because
I BELIEVE THAT!!!!
And I am 100% ok with that. I know that my purpose on this earth is to get married, have babies, and raise them in the gospel and there is NOTHING I want more. Yes, I have a career and yes, I LOVE my job. But I never expected, or wanted, to teach more than 5 or 6 years (10 at the most) because I want to be home with my children.
And personally, I think thats where women should be, if possible...at HOME.
A friend and I have a joke about wanting nothing more than to be a 50's housewife- the cooking, the cleaning, the apron, the hot chocolate chip cookies, the dinner on the table when my husband gets home from work.
That is the single greatest thing I could accomplish.
EVER.
