Thread by @heathersdesk

I was at distribution to get some more Jesus Jammies yesterday.

We always like looking at the artwork. I was being flippant about White Jesus when my husband showed me this one.

My heart caught in my throat.

Link to the artist: anthonysweat.com/relief-society…

I stood there looking at it, speechless, for a long time.

The contradiction between the way things were for women in the Church and the way things are, after more than a century of losses in autonomy and ability, made plain for everyone to sit with. Right before my eyes.

I pushed back tears because this comes so close to what is painful for new about being a woman in the Church. To be loved continually, but not trusted to accomplish the calling God has given to me with all the tools available to me in my religious community... it hurts, so much.

I was an ordinance worker when most women my age couldn't be. I have anointed with oil, laid hands, forgiven sins in the name of Jesus Christ, and lifted up the heavy hands that hang down.

I have blessed the bodies of women with healing, healed the body of this Church.

I discovered that I have a gift to heal others through my prayers of faith and through my (artificially limited) access to God's power.

That's part of how I became a nurse. What the Church won't allow me to do with consecrated oil, I will do with medicine and prayer.

I have a gift. I can use it to benefit the Church in its fullness, or I can go elsewhere with it. Either way, I will not hold it under a bushel or bury it in the ground. That was never an option.

Those are the words that caught in my throat yesterday and I needed to get them out