Nancy's Musings

A member of my congregation whom I admire posted a link to this today. It's an amazing site, and one I look forward to utilizing - especially the  At the Pulpit  online resource, which offers excerpts and discourses by women in General Conference. The man who posted it prefaced the link with this quotation:  President Spencer W. Kimball said: "Someday, when the whole story of this and previous dispensations is told, it will be filled with courageous stories of our women, of their wisdom and their devotion, their courage, for one senses that perhaps, just as women were the first at the sepulchre of the Lord Jesus Christ after his resurrection, our righteous women have so often been instinctively sensitive to things of eternal consequence" ("The True Way of Life and Salvation," Apr . 1978 General Conference). I imagine it was something discussed in the BYU-Idaho devotional this morning. I'm not affiliated with the university in any way, officially or unoffic...

I have been very frustrated lately. I have been ill for more than a week, and unable to do the things I usually do. I can't babysit, fulfill my religious duties, or earn my keep in the house. I dreamt last night that I couldn't pay rent, and that I was being kicked out. (There's no real fear of that, I promise). I have been functionally unemployed (read: self-employed) for several years now, living on student loans and the generosity of others. Not only do I feel pressure to earn money to survive, but I have a desperate emotional need to feel and be useful. These feelings usually make me look around myself for a need I can fill, but everyone's needs seem to be met by others much more suitable. I don't have the social connections to people that would make my ministering to them natural and beneficial. All my connections seem so awkward and disjointed that if I tried to be useful, I would only be tolerated, for my own sake. I don't have money: I am in need. ...