As Sisters in Zion

I am in a book club. I recommend it. I love my book club. I love the women in my book club. For lack of a better description, they are my soul sisters. When you share books and ideas with others your feelings change towards them. At least it has happened for me. They are my friends. One of my book club friends, Suzanne, had her eldest daughter get married yesterday. About a month ago, she called me to see if I could help with the food at the reception. I was thrilled.

When Motel, the poor tailor in Fiddler on the Roof, gets a sewing machine, his mother-in-law, Golde says, “You’re a person!”

After Suzanne asked me to help with Julie’s wedding, I called my sisters to tell them I’d been asked. I said, “I’m a person!” They were fittingly impressed.

So yesterday I gathered in the kitchen of the church with four other women. We cleaned and sliced fruits and vegetables for about an hour and a half. It was sheer pleasure. We chatted about upcoming babies being born, last sons leaving home, daughters on missions with upcoming birthdays, good consignment shops to find maternity clothes. One lady who’s in primary confided that they’d lost Mark a few weeks ago when he’d had a substitute teacher but it all worked out in the end because she’d found him outside climbing a tree. She said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you…” How could I not love her for caring enough to hunt my son down, find him in a tree and kindly guide him back to primary?

My meager efforts to cut up a few cantaloupes are nothing compared to the value I get from being around other women. Strong good women that are there for each other. Knowing that I’m part of something is a boon to me with unaccountable value. In all of the different wards I’ve lived in, at every milestone in life that I’ve passed through, there have been these same types of women. When I was in college and my dad had cancer and my sister had just left on her mission and I felt desolate, it was the women in Relief Society, the ones I had known since childhood that bolstered me. There was a small army of women that helped at my wedding receptions (both in my ward and Adam’s) and that threw me marvelous bridal showers. When my babies were born, every time we’ve moved or had illness, it was these same types of women that cared for us and fed us, body and soul.

Marjorie Hinckley said: “Oh, how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young. And, hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old. It is a sociological fact that women need women. We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other.”

I wish I had the words to express my gratitude for my sisterhood.

It’s not just the sisterhood though. I am grateful to a Father in Heaven who loves his daughters, gave us each gifts and talents and opportunities to serve and be served.

Sheri Dew said:

From the time we can string three words together, we’re serving. There is
no group of women anywhere who teach more, lead more, or speak more—or are better at it. Right now, hundreds of thousands of us are teaching children, youth, and adults. Hundreds of thousands more are serving in presidencies. I’ve looked, and I can’t find any religion, government, or business where so many women have as much influence as in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Now if we could just get Sheri Dew to come to our book club…