The Beginning of Answers

Ah. The beginning post. Not many people read it, and it's more of a symbolic beginning. I wanted to start by explaining why I even started this blog. To be honest it's mostly for me. But I do want to share what I learn with my girlfriends, family, and anyone else who has questions about being a woman in the LDS culture, life, and gospel. Why would I write this? Is it because I feel like I have wonderful answers to share with people? Not really. Honestly, it's the opposite. Like I said, I'm writing this mostly for me. I don't have the answers, and I've struggled with the questions for a long long time.

I don't really want to list my questions, because it gets me on a train of negative, degrading, and confusing thoughts. Let's just say that all of the topics to the right are things I've struggled with. Up until now, I've spent my whole life confronting my demons only once every few months and packaging them up the rest of my life and ignoring them. All that meant was that when I had to confront them, I could expect several hours of sobbing and depression.

I know. Don't think poor of me. And until recently it's felt like nobody has answers. Not church leaders, family members, prophets, or teachers. Everything people said seemed to make it worse. Then this year, something changed. I started receiving revelation in ways I never expected. People around me were saying things that just sparked thoughts that I knew didn't belong to me. I wrote them down, and it helped for a little while until some other big confrontation occurred. A few days ago, I found this lady's blog: Women in the Scriptures. And she said something that changed my whole perspective: study the scriptures!

I know! It's nothing you wouldn't think of . . . but she said to read the entire standard works and highlight everything that mentions something female related. Wow. So far, I've been so surprised by how much there is. Not everything is spiritually enlightening (since I've been highlighting a lot of "daughters" from the phrase "and he begat sons and daughters"), but you know what? It sure makes a difference to flip through pages (electronically) and see all that pink. It makes me feel like the scriptures do relate to me. It's beginning to change my whole perspective. I'm finding counsel everywhere to help with my concerns. Here are a few general topics I'm going to try and address for myself. (You can always find them as tags to the right.)

1) What does it mean to be a wife and how do I be a good one? How can I be an equal partner while having my different roles?

2) How can I still be a missionary at home? I didn't get to serve a full-time mission, and I know I'll always hold a little regret for that even if I made the right choice. So how can I still serve my mission while staying at home?

3) What are the divine attributes of women and what should I be working on? What exactly is my divine nature?

4) How is motherhood a blessing and not a burden? How do I contradict my negative feelings about it?

5) What exactly does the Relief Society do? What should we be doing? Do we really have equal opportunity for leadership as the men? Do women do important things in the church too?

6) Not going to list all my questions here . . . but I have got to find some understanding for certain things that happen in the temple. I promise I won't break covenants when I post, but I've found some really good resources helping me understand some things and I want to share them and search for more.

7) Has the church had a history of oppressing women like the rest of the world? Or did we play any important roles in our history?

8) What women are in the scriptures, and what can I learn from them?

9) If men have the priesthood, what do women have? What is our power?

Anyway, as I said I don't have the answers. But I have faith I'll find them. Eventually. Even if it takes my whole life (as I suspect it will), someday I will know the answers to all these questions and all the others that come up. To anyone who wants to join me on this journey, WELCOME! All I ask is that you acknowledge that people do have these questions and struggle with these problems and refrain from saying things like, "Well I've never struggled with that." or "I don't know what the big deal is." Trust me. It doesn't help. I know you all have your questions. (If you don't you're not thinking hard enough.) This blog just documents my search for my answers.