W is for Women

I’m sitting in my sister, Ellen’s, kitchen, watching her bustle around cooking wonderful food.  Sarah and I ‘help’-- she cuts berries and I make guacamole.  We talk and laugh as we wait for Heidi, the fourth member of our quartet, to arrive.  These scenes remind me of when I was a girl.  I would watch my mother and her sisters.  I was fascinated by their relationship, the comfortable way they had.  I didn’t understand what it was, but it was something. Their faces lit up, they laughed at secret jokes and spoke of womanly things.  I wanted to be around them, to feel the overflow of what they shared.  I would sit at the edge of their circle, trying to absorb it.

I understood it better as I grew.  I found myself drawn to the company of other women.  Being in a group of females made me happy. It gave me a surge of strength that lasted long after. 

We women have a bond that is unique and sometimes indescribable.  Spirit to spirit, heart to heart, we are bound to each other. 

Today and tomorrow I am attending a Women’s Conference at BYU.  Two days of spiritual enlightenment and sisterly bonding.  I look around the large center where we gather and am overwhelmed by the feeling of connection I have to these thousands of women I don’t even know.  We have different lives and circumstance, but we are linked to each other all the same.  We listen as other women encourage us, teach us, lift us with their own histories and experience.  We share laughter and tears and our testimonies and souls are strengthened.  We are reminded that we, as women, are strong. We are capable. The influences of the world are pushed aside and we feel the sweet comfort that belief in each other and in the Savior brings. 

Heaven has bestowed upon us a great gift.  We must take it, claim it, hold it to our bosom and cherish it. We must not put ourselves down or diminish our role. We are women. We are sisters. We are glorious. We are divine.