If you're serious about sanctification, you can expect to experience heart-wrenching moments that try your faith, your endurance, and your patience.
We no longer have the luxury of spending our energy on anything that does not lead us and our families to Christ.
By the time I turned 12, I was a 5-foot 10-inch social disaster. Towering over my friends was the bane of my adolescence.
As sisters in Zion, we can be obstacles to the adversary's conspiracy against families and virtue.
Our responsibility is to learn to draw upon the power of the Atonement. Otherwise, we walk through mortality relying solely on our own strength.
In this world, the only true joy comes from the gospel - the joy that radiates from the Atonement and from ordinances that transcend the veil, and from the Comforter that salves our souls.
I am a basketball junkie, and as a product of the great basketball state of Kansas, I have watched many a ball game between the University of Kansas Jayhawks and the Tar Heels.
Men and women who sell their birthright for a mess of pottage will tell you that their demise began with something small, with some seemingly insignificant breach of integrity that escalated. The little things do matter. It is not possible to profess righteousness while flirting with sin.
I was a friend during school time, but not much after that. By the time I got to BYU, I was a social mess, an absolute misfit. There is not a shyer, more pathetic kid who stepped on that BYU campus than me.
Satan has declared war on motherhood. He knows that those who rock the cradle can rock his earthly empire. And he knows that without righteous mothers loving and leading the next generation, the Kingdom of God will fail.
Through the years, I, like you, have experienced pressures and disappointments that would have crushed me had I not been able to draw upon a source of wisdom and strength far greater than my own. He has never forgotten or forsaken me, and I have come to know for myself that Jesus is the Christ and that this is His Church.
Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is 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.
Regardless of your marital status, your age, or the language you speak, you are a beloved spirit daughter of Heavenly Father who is destined to play a critical part in the onward movement of the gospel kingdom.
I was raised on a farm in Kansas where we lived next door to my Grandma Dew, and I was her shadow. We went everywhere together - to the bank, the doctor, the Early Bird Garden Club, and to an endless procession of Church meetings.
There will be days when you feel defeated, exhausted, and plain old beat-up by life's whiplash. People you love will disappoint you - and you will disappoint them. You'll probably struggle with some kind of mortal appetite. Some days it will feel as though the veil between Heaven and Earth is made of reinforced concrete.
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.
Satan understands the power of men and women united in righteousness. He is still stinging from his banishment into eternal exile after Michael led the hosts of heaven, comprised of valiant men and women united in the cause of Christ, against him.
Indeed, this life is a test. It is a test of many things - of our convictions and priorities, our faith and our faithfulness, our patience and our resilience, and in the end, our ultimate desires.
The decisions you are making right now and that you will make in the foreseeable months and years will absolutely determine whether you pivot towards the world or towards the Lord.
Neither man nor woman is perfect or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying upon each other's strengths.
