more on Charity

I heard much in General Conference about charity - a topic I have been wondering about recently. Thanks to the Apostles and other speakers, I received much guidance on how and where to exercise charity in my life.

The first talk we tuned into was Elder Quentin L. Cook on Saturday morning where he talked about how wonderful the women of the church are! I thought, "Exactly!" He addressed the big concern I have had lately that women are hearing but not receiving the message about how wonderful and divine they are. They've got shields up that deflect the true statements they hear about themselves all the time. How can that happen, you ask?

Well see if you can relate to this: Has anyone ever given you a compliment, maybe said you are beautiful or talented or something, and it bounced right off you because you didn't believe it was true? I've talked to several women about this who say they do that. Their husband will tell them they are beautiful or desirable or someone else will say something nice about them and they immediately dismiss it as false. Why? Because they've got some other underlying belief about themselves that acts as a force field to repel any compliment that is not consistent with their own belief about themselves.

That's not what Elder Cook talked about - he talked about how wonderful women are. I've noticed that although this is the message going into our ears, some people are not hearing it. We've got filters up trying to protect us. That's why I've been talking about charity, self-love and self-acceptance so much lately - because as one woman put it, "It is so absent." My great desire is that we can let down those guards and open our hearts to the truth about who we are: Children of a King!

To illustrate this I would like to tell you about a markedly different conversation I had with another dynamic lady - so cool! This is one fantastic girl who knows she's amazing, who expects the best for herself and gets it. Growing up in a part member family, she fixed her eyes firm on a temple marriage to a righteous husband who would honor his priesthood, treat her with respect, and work together with her to raise a precious family in the gospel. She had the goal, believed nothing less was worthy of her, and made her actions consistent with her ultimate objective. In talking with her about self-acceptance, I said, "I really don't think this is an issue for her." She shared with me a story that to me offers part of an explanation of why self-love comes naturally. She learned it from her mother. She said that sometimes growing up her mother would say, "Oh, I'm so beautiful!"

Wow! How many of our daughters hear those words out of our mouths? We talk about other people being beautiful, maybe we even hear other people say that about us - I know I tell my kids all the time how beautiful they are. But I'm learning that in addition to hearing good things about themselves they need to hear me saying good, kind, loving things about myself. They will learn how to treat themselves and what to expect in their lives by my example of how I treat myself.