Neal A. Maxwell - Women of Faith: Mothers Day Booklet

1997 Neal A. Maxwell.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company (permissions@deseretbook.com), P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

ISBN 1-57345-259-9
Printed in the United States of America
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Women of Faith

One evening, not long ago, my wife Colleen said to me, You really ought to go see Pearl Lence; it is her birthday. Earlier I had been Pearls home teacher for a few years. Pearl was by then over ninety. But it had been a long, hard day, and I said, Oh, honey, I am just so tired. Colleen said, I think you ought to go. So I went.

Pearl came to the doorway after I rang the bell. When she opened it and saw who it was, she said, I prayed to Heavenly Father that you would come today, and the Spirit told me you would come.

I am grateful such promptings come. I dont worry about which of us they come through, my wife or me, as we strive to serve in the kingdom of God. I regularly watch Colleen in the circle of her ministry which is wide and deep as she moves about her rounds quietly. It is not uncommon for me to be starting a meal and find that she is fastingsometimes for someone I hardly know who is ill or has a sick wife or for whomever. I am not offended but happy when she gets the promptings that come to us in our mutual roles as neighbors and parents.

If I fail otherwise in these thoughts, I desire to salute and to encourage the faithful women of the Church. Previously, I have paid public and deserved tribute, describing them as the women of God. Happily, their numbers increase, for there has been, and is now taking place, by both birth and conversion, a significant infusion of such sisters into the kingdom. These saintly sisters have been sent by God to share in performing significant tasks, which I will reference later.

Unquestionably, as brothers and sisters, we share alike both blessings and challenges. We share in a single system of salvation. We strive to walk the same straight and narrow path. We read the same scriptures. We frequent the same holy temples of God, participating in their holy ordinances. We partake of the same sacrament and share spiritual gifts. We are called to serve and are released from serving in the kingdom of God by the same divine authority. We depend upon the same atonement for immortality and upon obeying the same commandments for eternal life. We are to cultivate the same celestial attributes and to develop the same righteous reflexes.

There are other shared realities, too, however. For example, as women are more and more in the world, the tendency, as with men, will be, alas, for some women to become more of the world. Unless they are women of faith, this process will inexorably occur. A father-prophets reproving, tender words to an erring child would be no less instructive had they been, But this was no excuse for thee, my daughter (see Alma 39:4).

For us all, whatever ones roles, assignments, or achievements, any move away from Christ is a move toward un-happiness and emptiness. The praise and applause of the world may, for the moment, muffle the grim sounds of such movementbut the distance will still be there, and the consequences. There are no immunities because of gender, as sin isolates the individual and destroys the tastebuds of the soul. Hence, the laughter of the world is really loneliness trying to reassure itself, whether the hollow laughter is masculine or feminine.

The strategic challenges to sustain faith are likewise the same for us all; the only variations are tactical. Jesus taught how temptation, persecution (also, intriguingly, fear of persecution), tribulation, and the cares of the world draw us away from Him (see Matthew 13:21; Luke 8:1314; D&C 40:2).

Into those broad but debilitating categories the tactical challenges fit. For instance, the cares and anxieties of the world include being unduly anxious about receiving the praise and honors of the world. Fear of persecution includes the unwillingness to bear the mocking and scorning of the world.

Temptation includes the lure of more worldly lifestyles. For some, the straight and narrow path seems to be too confining; hence, such seek a little more room to commit a little sin, to lie a littleto do a little more merrymaking. After all, they reason, for conforming a little bit to the fashion of the world, God will only beat us with a few stripes (2 Nephi 28:8).

Shared, too, is the matter of to whom we look for leadership. Meridian-day Saints, like Mary and Dorcas, did not, for instance, look for guidance or satisfaction from the prestigious Sanhedrin, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, Herod, Caiaphas, Pilateor even regal Rome and its Caesars, whose impressive days of power spanned centuries. Instead, these and other saintly sisters viewed things with the eye of faith and thereby saw things as they really are (Jacob 4:13). They had the precious perspective of the gospel.

It is no different in our day. Faith cannot be placed safely in the arm of flesh (see D&C 1:19), nor happiness derived from the things of the flesh (Romans 8:5). For all the faithful, therefore, the ultimate and most demanding goal is that which was stated unmistakably three times in holy writ:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect (3 Nephi 12:48).

What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am (3 Nephi 27:27).

Indeed, for brothers and sisters alike, to be truly about our Heavenly Fathers business consists in striving to become like His Only Begotten Son. His cardinal qualities include love, mercy, meekness, purity, patience, and spiritual submissiveness. Being portable, these qualities, insofar as we have developed them, will rise with us in the resurrection, when so little else will.

Given this, our grand objective, it is vital to inventory and ponder some of our challenges and our opportunities, which exist side by side like the wheat and tares, for it will be in that setting that we are to strive to emulate the Master.

Since you live in a time of prophecies in fulfillment, rather than simply prophecies under anticipatory discussion, this sampling may suffice. I stress that whatever our roles or the sector of our service, we can contemplate the tapestry of our time, seeing divine design and pattern whatever our season of life or circumstance.

Jesus foresaw the last days, when because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold (Matthew 24:12). This coarsening is spreading in our time. Paul said the incontinent among us would be fierce, despisers of those that are good (2 Timothy 3:3). This coarsening will, alas, include some of the women of the world, not just the men. For me, seeing the language of the locker spread to the living room or kitchen under the guise of emancipation and sophistication is sad indeed. I never liked it in the locker room, because its sounds diminished and degraded all who spoke and listened.