Never inconsequential to the Lord

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Relief Society Session of the October 2011 Conference. 

I love Sister Julie B. Beck! I didn't realize how much of a favorite she was for me until re-reading these conferences. She always has such good things to say! I loved this insight about women in the early restored church:

The great growth of the early Church was made possible because faithful men were willing to leave their families to travel to unknown places and suffer privations and hardship to teach the gospel. However, these men understood that their missions would not have been possible without the full faith and partnership of the women in their lives, who sustained homes and businesses and earned income for their families and the missionaries. The sisters also cared for the thousands of converts who gathered in their communities. They were deeply committed to a new way of life, helping build the Lord’s kingdom and participating in His work of salvation.

Of course I've thought a lot about the sacrifices women made as they let their husbands go off on missions and shouldered the burdens of their families at home. But I hadn't thought about the fact that they had to be there at home so there would be a place to welcome in the ones being gathered. It made me ask for the first time "Gathering…to what?" Obviously there has to be a place to gather scattered Israel to. I guess it's technically "the church" or "God's kingdom," but what kind of a place IS that? Is it a place that feels like home? Is it a place people would want to be gathered into? A place they'd like to stay? If it isn't, what's the point of gathering in the first place? (I guess being gathered to God is the real point. And HE always feels like home. Still, I think as a church we could either reflect or obscure what God Himself feels like, depending on how we treat each other.) Anyway, I like the thought that some people have to go out and find and gather Israel…and some people have to stay back and make a welcoming place for them to gather to! It's kind of like that Boyd K. Packer quote that "the end of all activity in the Church is to see that a man and a woman with their children are happy at home, sealed together for time and for all eternity." Just herding Israel around from one place to another like sheep isn't the point at all. The point is to gather God's lost children from where they are into something better—and WE have to be the thing that makes it better. The point is to bring them home—and we have to be the home. I think that's so interesting!

I also really loved this:

The kind of work the sisters of this Church are asked to do in our day has never been too modest in scope or inconsequential to the Lord. Through their faithfulness, they can feel His approval and be blessed with the companionship of His Spirit.

I think I could never hear this too much—that my work is not inconsequential. I know it isn't and yet it just feels SO much like it is, from day to day! But I can see evidence of God's approval when I feel His Spirit. As Elder Eyring said a couple years ago, "If you have felt the influence of the Holy Ghost today, you may take it as a sweet evidence that the Atonement is working in your life."

One more thing that struck me was the kindness and generosity with which Sister Beck talked about the Visiting Teaching program (which was still in existence at this time, but was making some changes): 

Throughout the years, Relief Society sisters and leaders have learned one step at a time and have improved in their ability to watch over others. There have been times when sisters have focused more on completing visits, teaching lessons, and leaving notices when they have stopped by their sisters’ homes. These practices have helped sisters learn patterns of watchcare. Just as people in the time of Moses concentrated on keeping long lists of rules, the sisters of Relief Society have at times imposed many written and unwritten rules upon themselves in their desire to understand how to strengthen one another.

With so much need for relief and rescue in the lives of sisters and their families today, our Heavenly Father needs us to follow a higher path and demonstrate our discipleship by sincerely caring for His children.

I think I just liked the acknowledgement that ALL the programs of the church, and all their different iterations and emphases, have been helpful and good for their times. Sometimes I feel bad about how people talk about visiting teaching like it was this outdated Pharisaical thing that we've grown so far past in our current enlightened state. And yes. We have been asked to be higher and holier. But all the things we've done in the past HAVE been important and served important purposes! They weren't just wasted. They helped us learn! They taught us patterns! They formed habits! Sometimes I think the younger women who were never around for Visiting Teaching missed out on some lessons I'm grateful I learned—lessons about consistency, accountability, face to face interaction, pushing through discomfort, speaking together of sacred things, etc. Ministering obviously can, and maybe should, still include those things, but since they aren't overtly mentioned, it's easy to forget them. And Sister Beck says that even the "unwritten rules" we "impose on ourselves" might have served good purposes at certain times. I like that view of the past—the generous view rather than "Everyone was only going through the motions back in the bad old days!" I like it because it gives me hope that all the things we try to do in the church now, all our imperfect and clumsy attempts at figuring out how to best help and serve and love each other—even if these attempts end up needing correction and change later on—still serve important purposes. They are not inconsequential. They still help us "learn one step at a time." They still advance us along the path towards God.