{"id":4714,"date":"2008-08-11T11:03:19","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T15:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2009-01-17T02:20:34","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T06:20:34","slug":"single-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2008\/08\/single-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Single Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"

I thought Ardis’ comment<\/a> deserves a bigger audience:<\/p>\n

The truth is that we (single women) never do hear anything aimed at finding value in our mateless, childless circumstances, except for how we can be of use to families:<\/p>\n

* The articles to singles in this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ensign were all for young dating singles still expecting to get married, not for singles who are now unlikely to marry and who need to find purpose in some other direction.
\n* In my ward\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first Sunday RS lessons for July and August (taught by our RS president and counselor, with topics assigned by our bishop), we focused on the importance of family, with the only two remarks aimed at singles being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you can support families by babysitting so mothers can go to the temple or go on dates with their husbands\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you might not have any use for this now, but listen to it so that in the hereafter you know how to be good mothers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n* We often hear that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no righteous woman who does not marry in this life through no fault of her own will be denied these blessings in the eternities\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d an eternal promise, but not one that gives much direction for this life.
\n* In the 2008 Worldwide Training linked by WillF, Elder Holland acknowledged the presence of single adults, but explained that the meeting would not be addressing us (except as children of our parents) because the family ideal was more important than our circumstances.
\n* Sister Beck, as I quoted, promised us the blessings of motherhood in the next life without offering any purpose for our lives now.<\/p>\n

I know individual single women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lives have great value, and I recognize that many lessons address all women, or all men and women (we all need to repent, exercise charity, pray, be chaste, and all the other things we learn), but there is never anything to teach us our value in the absence of families in the same way that Church leaders offer advice and support and counsel to families. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not at all minimizing the blessings to come in the eternities; but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live in the eternities. I live in mortality, and need something here and now that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just not getting from the Church organization and teachings. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts? Reactions? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought Ardis’ comment deserves a bigger audience:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mormon-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6223,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions\/6223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}