I have heard this from so many women: “Something is wrong with Relief Society; I just can’t put my finger on it.”
I think I’m feeling that if we are going to get together as sisters it needs to be worthwhile; something of value, a true accomplishment, something that has purpose.
The early RS sisters were out to accomplish serious issues of their day. They wanted to have a voice, so they went out and got the right to vote. There were health issues, so they paid for women to go back East to learn medicine. Women needed to learn how to run households, so they provided cooking, child care, and basic sanitation classes.
We learn how to scrapbook…okay, I don’t mean to pick on scrapbooking, but our purpose has somehow evolved into entertaining and socializing.
Our day and age is different, but with equally serious issues. Many marriages are falling apart; a “normal” family is now dysfunctional. There is too much debt amongst us, we are lacking in preparation for economic disaster. Our moral standards brush shoulders with the world.
Why aren’t we, as sisters, rallying to solve and overcome these issues, that put so many of our loved ones at risk, just like our early sisters did?
I don’t have any answers, I just have the same feelings I’ve heard other women express. I would love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and concerns. Together, I think we could come up with something valuable.
Here are my thoughts!!
I think if we really listen to what our general leaders are telling us, we should not be “entertaining” in Relief Society; however, part of being united as women in Relief Society means there does need to be some socializing. But I love what Julie Beck said about this once…it really stuck with me because we had been struggling with this issue in our ward. I think it was in a world wide training…or an open house…I can’t remember but she said something like…when we are planning activities, we should plan “service” activities first and the socializing will automatically come through that service, as opposed to planning “social” activities first which do not always bring about service.
To me, “rallying around” each other for these important issues means we need to attend and support those activities when they are planned in Relief Society. If they’re not being planned, that’s a problem but if they are we need to attend them. Some of our least attended activites have been the very ones that we feel would address some of these important issues..
Sometimes too, I feel like I’m not doing anything worthwhile if I’m not making a huge statement, whatever that is…whether it’s doing a huge service project that gets sent throughout the world or any number of wonderful worthwhile things that are of a more global nature, like women’s sufferage or learning medicine, or even tying 100 quilts. I get so inspired when I hear what the first women of Relief Society did and for that matter, wonderful women throughout time who have made our lives so much better. I think as women, we want to feel like we have a cause to support because of our inherant nuturing characteristics. These big statements are important but I believe we are completely missing the mark in today’s world when we think this is the only way to make a difference. One of satans tools is to minimize the importance of motherhood and of being a woman.
Sherri Dew said, “Here are just a few of Lucifer’s lies; That men are smarter, have all the power, and are more important, so if we want to have influence we should be more like them; that marriage and family are confining; that motherhood is menial and a waste of any talented woman’s time; that women are perpetually frazzled and failing and that a woman’s value is based on her size and shape and what she accomplishes outside the home.”
Elder Michael J. Teh of the Seventy said, “Many believe that for service to be meaningful it should consist of having elaborate plans and forming a committee. Although many of these worthwhile projects help, much of the service needed in the world today relates to our day-to-day associations with each other. Often we find these opportunities within the confines of our own home, neighborhood and ward.”
I also like what Screwtape said to Wormword on this subject. “Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circimference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.”
And as a dear friend said to me once, sometimes just being “present” means you are giving some of the best service there is to give, whether it’s going to a church function even if you don’t want to because by being “present” you might say something that someone really needed to hear, or by being “present” for our families.
So while there is this deep, unbelievable yearning in me to do something really worthwhile, something of value, a true accomplishment, something that has purpose, I have to keep reminding myself that I am already doing those things, it’s just that Satan doesn’t want me to think so. In today’s world, maybe that’s Relief Society’s cause…to help struggling families by helping women have a clear vision about our divine natuare, and by doing that we validate our existence and what we can accomplish with our families, in our own neighborhoods and wards and then we can help others to see and believe that vision too.