Mother's Day Talk

Hi all,

I gave a talk today in Sacrament meeting and thought I would share, enjoy!

Brent

Miss Jones was giving her second-grade students a lesson on science. “Here is a magnet,” she said. “It’s made of a kind of metal. Look how it can pickup nails, bobby pins, and other bits of iron.” The class watched with great fascination.
Then, by way of review, she asked, “All right class. My name begins with the letter ‘M’ and I pick up things. What am I?”
A little boy on the front row raised his hand and said, “You’re a mother.”
…
Happy Mother’s Day to all you sisters in the ward because you are either mothers or potential mothers and so I again I wish you Happy Mother’s Day.
…
Sister Marjorie D. Conder, curator at the Museum of Church History and Art, in an interview with the Church News in 1993 commented about the sacrifices made in the building of the Salt Lake Temple, "For those committed to the Kingdom, women and men, every resource which could be spared, even at great personal sacrifice, was plowed into the completion of the temple.

"This meant that in a time of expanding inventions and modernization, many women continued to perform daily tasks in old-fashioned and more difficult ways because family resources which could have made their lives easier were often diverted to finishing the temple. Thus for some women, every batch of laundry done in a more physically demanding way instead of with a washing machine was a consecrated sacrifice offered to the completion of the temple."

Temple project wages were modest and many workmen donated their time, she added. Skilled artisans were critically needed to complete the temple, but there was also work at much higher wages for these same artisans elsewhere in the territory.

"How many husbands and wives decided together to make the physical and financial sacrifices to finish the temple?" Sister Conder asked. "The women may not have been down at the temple site, but the fact that they were willing to have their husbands there showed personal sacrifice and commitment.

"These sacrifices are largely unknown and unvalued. It's not the kind of sacrifice that makes a story, but it's the sacrifice that made a temple," she remarked. "It was sacrifice that was unseen and unvalued even perhaps by those who had witnessed it or were giving it. Yet it was known to God and accepted of God as a sacrifice. . . .

"Seeing the larger picture and being willing to sacrifice in practical everyday ways for a larger cause, even if none but God could see and understand, is intuitive and central to women's spiritual lives," Sister Conder concluded.

Not only was the sacrifice of building the temple intuitive to women's spiritual lives, but completion of the temple has since brought women even more opportunities to grow as they have served in the sacred edifice through the years.
(Among the Silent Builders , LDS Church News, 1993, 03/20/93 .)

Let’s talk a little about how sacrifice is viewed today: I am constantly hearing about how someone has had to sacrifice time, energy, and monies to some cause and it has not always been talked about positively. In fact just the opposite is most of the time true. For the most part they feel cheated or put out by “having” to do this sacrifice they are talking about. How sad it is that they do not know little Zane May who we heard last week drew a picture of Jesus on the cross with a smile on his face. How sad it is that they may feel no value for their sacrifice. How sad it is that they do not truly understand what sacrifice is or what blessings it can bring.

Most of the dictionaries I looked in defined sacrifice as giving something up or offering animal/human sacrifices to appease the gods. But I think the very best definition I was able to come across was “to make sacred” and this is the type of sacrifice I wish to address in my talk today. Gospel principles tells us that “Sacrifice means giving to the Lord whatever he requires of our time, our earthly possessions, and our energies to further his work. The Lord commanded, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness”. Our willingness to sacrifice is an indication of our devotion to God. I also would like to directly relate to the sacrifices that women make to keep the human race afloat, as this is Mother’s Day and it should be appropriately about the sisters.

Sister Okazaki in her book Lighten Up says it very well, she says, “I know there are many women throughout the Church who grew up in poverty. Women who have had to struggle and sacrifice to get an education. Women who have nonmember husbands or part-member families. Women who have dealt with infertility. Women who have felt the sting of racial prejudice. Women who have worked outside their homes, either as a career choice or out of necessity. Women who bear the emotional and physical burdens of ill health. Women who are struggling with the loss of a loved one. Women who have left the traditional religion of their families to embrace the gospel.
(Chieko N. Okazaki, Lighten Up! [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1993], 3 - 4.)

While serving in the Florida, Tampa mission I came across a young lady in that last category. We had been teaching her boyfriend in the Palm Harbor Florida and she became interested in our discussions with him. She started asking questions one day and the follow up questions came on like a flood. Even though she was an actively participating member of her faith with responsibilities to teach and everything you could just tell she hungered for more. The answers we gave were almost astonishing to her as “she had always thought it was something different but didn’t know what it was that was that was different about religion that made her uneasy” with her church. Her testimony, her boyfriend’s interest and testimony and that of his mothers and grandmothers grew to a point that all four were baptized and became great students to the gospel. It was hardest for her because of her activity in the other church and her family’s belief. She finally had to come to the only conclusion that she saw as salvation: she had to give up her other church and feel the scorn of those who had lover her all her life. But she was willing to make the sacrifice she knew would ultimately lead to eternal life with her Father in Heaven.

Again referencing Gospel principles, “The Lord’s people have always sacrificed greatly and in many different ways. Some have suffered hardship and ridicule for the gospel. Some new converts to the Church (such as the sister in Florida) have been cut off from their families. Lifetime friends have turned away. Some members have lost jobs; some have lost their lives. But the Lord notices our sacrifices; he promises in Matthew 19:29, “Everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life”. As our testimonies of the gospel grow, we become able to make greater sacrifices to the Lord.” And they seem to become lighter and not quite the burden that the world sees sacrifice to be.

Some of the women we read about in the scriptures have made huge sacrifices on our behalf and we would not probably be where we are today if not for them:
1) First and foremost is mother Eve. God gave us the most important gift that we will ever have: The right and ability to choose for ourselves. But if you think about it if Eve had not given up living with her husband in paradise where everything was provided for her, where there she and her husband walked and talked with the Lord, where she knew for a fact she was loved, to know the good from the evil, we would not be here right now and they would still be in paradise. But she knew when she did that she would be able to do more good by knowing how to choose between the good and the evil. The blessing of course is that we are here today.
2) Another woman of the scriptures that gave a great sacrifice is Ruth. After her husband died she could have very easily gone back to live with her family, but seeing that her mother-in-law Naomi would be alone she chose to go to Bethlehem and live with her. The blessing received from her actions were that she was able to learn the Gospel from her mother-in-law, gain favor in the sight of Boaz who married her and gave her a child (for she had not been given one of her original husband before his death), and the generations that came after gave us King David and his royal line that included eventually our Savior Jesus Christ.
3) There are many many more woman of the scripture who gave up much for the benefit and blessings of the Lord:
A) Sariah, mother of Isaac, was probably given the knowledge out of the respect and love from her husband that he was given the task to sacrifice their son, but was willing to allow her husband Abraham the leniency to be tested by the Lord of his devotion to Him. The Blessing was the great nations that were born in righteousness to whom we all belong.
B) Sarah, the mother of Nephi, gave up the riches and luxuries that her husband’s wealth provided to follow him and his prophetic warnings, to dwell in tents, have her son’s (Laman and Lemeul) give great persecution to her husband Lehi and her son Nephi, and be lead on a great journey of hardship and strife. The Blessing is that today we have the Book of Mormon and the Gospel Restored in our day.
C) And how about the mother of the Son of God. When Christ was born she knew that he would have to deal with great hardships, persecutions, strife, and eventually a great sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice of all, his death that all mankind could be saved and live with our Father in Heaven again.

Mothers even today make some great sacrifices for us and as we all have a mother I wish to talk a little about them. It’s probably not easy being a mother when you have to go through some major bodily changes to give life to someone who may not always show you the greatest respect and knowing that your body will never truly be the same. It’s probably not easy to see your child struggle through the trials that he or she has been given to undertake. But what a wonderful blessing it is to see a beautiful smile from a youngster who sees you and lights up knowing that you will protect, lead, and guide them through this life. What a wonderful blessing it is to get that hug that wraps around you with no guile, completely loving you and conveying that love through that hug. What a wonderful blessing it must be when you see that through your righteous teachings your children make correct choices and learn to live the Gospel.

President Harold B Lee taught: “Woman has within her the power of creation in company with her legal and lawful husband here, and if sealed in celestial wedlock, she may have eternal increase in the world to come. Woman is the homemaker in her own home and an exemplar to her posterity in the generations that succeed her. Woman is the helpmeet to her husband and may render him more perfect that he otherwise would be. Woman’s influence can bless a community or a nation to that extent to which she develops her spiritual powers in harmony with the heaven-sent gifts with which she has been endowed by nature… Year in and year out, she may cast the aura of her calming and refining influence to make certain that her posterity will enjoy the opportunities to develop to their fullest potential their spiritual and physical natures.”

And I find his next statement particularly true in our home, “Mothers are the creators of the atmosphere in the home and do much to provide the strong foundation for their sons and daughters, to provide them with strength when they leave the influence of their homes.” Along with these words I want to add a poignant statement from President Brigham Young, “One thing is very true and we believe it, and it is that a woman is the glory of the man… When I reflect upon the duties and responsibilities”, and I would add the sacrifices, “devolving upon our mothers and sisters, and the influence they wield, I look upon them as the mainspring and soul of our being here.”

I would be amiss if I did not acknowledge the sacrifices the woman in my life has made in behalf of our family. She has through the course of the 14 plus years we have been married: worked while I could not provide fully for our family and went through school, put up with me going through a medical depression, bore four pregnancies that gave us four beautiful children, and put their physical and spiritual needs before her own to make sure they know that their Father in Heaven loves them. There is music in our home because she has taught them to sing. There are times of peace when a lesson of spirituality is taught by her. And there are sacrifices she has made to make our home a great place to be. She has also made sacrifices that have made her willingly available to the sisters she has served in the church and whom she surrounds herself. And the really neat thing is that I hear more about the blessings she feels from serving others than I do about sacrifices she feel she has made on their behalf.

This is the way sacrifice should be viewed and which we as Latter-Day Saints uniquely are able to perceive our Savior being as he gave of himself willingly and, again as little Bro. May has shown us, happily for our salvation.