"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”
Lately this quote has been on my mind. What an incredible woman! There is truly power in being a woman of God and Marjorie Pay Hinckley magnified that womanhood. As each year passes I feel like I am learning more and more what being a woman means. It is truly a partnership with God. We cannot bring about the good we crave unless we have partnered with him. Womanhood has a hollow meaning unless it is partnered with God. He gives woman their glow and influence. I see it in all the woman around me that I ache so much to be like. There is an adoration and a beauty that emits from their countenance. It has nothing to do with clothes, body image, hair, cars, etc. It is a glow from within that comes from a pure heart.
From where I stand I still have so much to learn and experience to be crowned with the kind of glow that Sister Hinckley emitted. But I'm going to try to take the advice of this amazing woman...“We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something. We have to learn to be content with what we are.”
These words speak peace to me. We are all on a journey. One day when my journey ends I hope I have the glow of a woman of God.
