Our Divine potential

Earlier this week I blogged about my the lesson I had to teach in Young Womens today and as the week progressed I felt more and more guilty about the things I had written ( obviously the spirit trying to tell me something). So I deleted it. Now that I have finished teaching, I am going to give this post another go.

When I first read the lesson, these were my issues: 

1. The Lesson is titled " Finding joy in our Divine potential ". The Objective is " Each young woman will understand her divine potential and learn how to find joy in it." The way I read that is that a young woman's "divine potential" ( whatever that happens to be) is not something she would be happy with naturally. It almost sounds like they want us to persuade the girls into a particular way of thinking. 

2. Amazingly, despite the clear lesson objective, " Divine potential" is not actually explained or defined in any of the lesson material. The only way a young woman is supposed to understand her divine potential is to draw inferences from whatever is presented to her during the lesson.


3. Part of the lesson says to: Invite an exemplary sister (preferably one who has married in the temple and has a family), who has been approved by priesthood advisers, to speak to the young women about the joy of being a woman... Seriously? So,  the only people qualified to teach about the " Divine potential" of young women are married mothers who are approved by male church leaders? To be honest, this part of the lesson really got to me and I couldn't shake it off. 

After praying, pondering, and posting shameful blog posts I realized I wasn't angry or upset by the lesson content, rather, the way it was organized and presented in the lesson manual. So, I tried to listen to the spirit and follow what it was prompting me to teach.

We discussed what ' Divine potential' actually meant as opposed to " Mormon cultural expectations" using myself as an example. I married a RM in the temple- gold stars for me. However, after two years of marriage we are still childless and I know this has dented my halo in the eyes of many relief society sisters. Of course motherhood and marriage are a part of our divine potential, but there is so much more to it. I am blessed in my life to know many strong older single sisters. Some are divorced and have left difficult relationships. Some have never married. All are independent, strong in spirit and temple worthy. These are the examples I held up to my Young Women alongside sisters who have married in the temple and started families.

We discussed " The Family a Proclamation to the world " and looked at some of the divine gifts and responsibilities we have been given as women regardless of our circumstance- to nurture, love and teach. 

We watched  ' The joy of womanhood'  by Margaret D. Nadauld from the October 2000 general conference and discussed different aspects of her talk. One of my Laurels brought up a great point " If I am going to get married and then stay at home with my kids, what's the point of going to uni". We talked about how seeking higher learning was part of achieving our divine potential. If we get an education and magnify our talents and skills then that will make us stronger, more capable women who can bless our families and serve others better.

We ended the lesson by discussing how Heavenly Father knows each of us individually and I shared examples of times he has guided me in my life. I think if they left the lesson today at least knowing that much, then hopefully they will have the faith to follow Him to wherever  he wants them to be.

This week of preparation was hard and I am still trying to figure out what the Lord wanted me to learn from this experience. I love my Young Women and I know the Lord loves them too and that I will be accountable for what I teach them during the time we spend together. I am so grateful that the spirit was able to guide me with what to say today so that I could teach them the principles without the need to be cynical or bitter.