Women and the Priesthood

Here is how it went at Sunday School last week.

I said

I don’t want to spend all lesson talking about women and the Priesthood, but I don’t want to ignore it either. We are going to try a third option.  I’m going to say something brief and then that’s it. We will immediately move on.

Here goes. Male and female created He them. One of the fundamentals is that men and women are different and have different missions and roles. Since the earliest times, men have held the Priesthood. I haven’t heard a good short explanation for it, but I haven’t heard a good short explanation for what exactly the differences between men and women are either and those differences are facts we stare in the face every day.  Whenever we see some long persisting difference in roles between men and women, we shouldn’t need a justification.

I bear my testimony that the Priesthood as it is is ordained of God, that every member can and does receive its blessings, that He loves each of us, He loves you, immensely. Nothing you need will ever be denied. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Now let’s turn to the lesson.

The Spirit was there. It went well.

Then a sister raised her hand. Oh no, I thought. Against my better judgment I called on her.

She said

I was a midwife. I delivered 5,218 babies.  At every one of those births the Spirit was so strong.  Motherhood is an infinite gift that God has reserved only for women.  It is so precious.

The Spirit was so strong.

I said

Once I dreamed I was in a land where they had me magic. They were showing me around.  They showed me a wizard who could wave his hands and pull steel from the rock and shape it into tools. They showed me another wizard who could command crops to grow and fruit and flower. Then they said they wanted to show me the greatest wizard of all. They reverently showed me a woman in a robe. I asked what her art was. I’m hushed tones, they said “Of her own flesh she makes human beings.”

The Spirit was so strong. We went on to have a good lesson but we all knew we had already reached its peak.