5
Starring in Your Own Three-Act Play
Most modern women’s lives are filled with perplexing and often awesome ambiguities, just as was Eve’s. This glorious woman who is called by the title “Eve,” meaning “the mother of all living,” covenanted with God to be the vessel through which waiting spirits could claim a mortal body and reside on a mortal earth. In Eden the Lord gave a commandment to Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth, while at the same time commanding them not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Their dilemma was that they could not do both. If they were to obey the second commandment, they would not be able to fulfill the first and greater commandment. Then as the Lord has done with no other commandment, He reminded them of their agency: “Nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself” (Moses 3:17).
To partake or not to partake: What do we make of these conflicting commandments? Why would the Lord give two sets of instruction, both of which could not be followed? The answer is found in the most basic of our restored gospel’s teachings, for in so doing God not only allowed but required a choice to be made, thereby setting into action the principle of agency in this, the second estate. Elder John A. Widtsoe helps us understand the principle at work in this seeming ambiquity:
“In life all must choose at times. Sometimes, two possibilities are good; neither is evil. Usually, however, one is of greater import than the other. When in doubt, each must choose that which concerns the good of others—the greater law—rather than that which chiefly benefits ourselves—the lesser law. . . . The greater must be chosen whether it be law or thing. That was the choice made in Eden.”1
Choosing Between the Vital and the Merely Important
Most ambiguities arise when we are confronted with two important and good choices. It is up to us to discern those acts or actions that honor the greater law (those things that move us toward the fulfillment of our many missions) as opposed to the lesser law (those things which are secondary to that main theme and are far too often centered on self and things of the world).
To be in accord with God’s intent for our lives, we must move to embrace and honor that greater law, just as did Eve. We must learn to distinguish between those things that are vital and essential to our salvation and to that of our loved ones’ , as opposed to those things that are important to us and our worldly needs and expectations.
One way to easily distinguish between the two is to understand that each of us has a mission or missions—assigned to us by God and connecting us to Him. Careers are details of larger missions and of vital importance to our mortal journeys but secondary to our first responsibility—to facilitate His work, which is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
For men the ambiguities between missions and career can seem to be less pronounced. Men typically know from an early age that they will select a career that will shape their adulthood as they assume their role as breadwinner. Their education is most often directed toward degrees and career goals. Their planning likely will include serving a Church mission, having a family, and establishing a home in which they will preside. Generally, this plan includes priesthood service and community involvement, augmented by some recreational pursuits—all components of a full life lived in recognition of their life’s missions.
For women it can be quite different. An attractive and obviously professional young woman posed the following dilemma at a question-and-answer period at the conclusion of a conference for single women: “I’m still confused about how I sort out the uncertainties and ambiguities of my personal and professional life. How do I go about preparing for a whole life?”
I must tell you I didn’t know the full answer, nor I suspect does anyone. Finding that balance is one of the great challenges women face in mortality. I could only propose basic considerations. The answer for one woman is not the answer for another; however, there are sure principles on which to base one’s choices. One important consideration is to look at your life plan in the macro rather than the micro. Try very hard to tap into your own divine contract and always pay careful attention to where your preparation is leading you. Is your choice or decision moving you toward fulfillment of your many missions, or is it likely to curtail your ability to complete one of those pre-appointed errands? Is your life’s plan solely about career, or are you preparing for a whole life and all that such a life may require of you?
We Must Base Our Lives on God’s Truths
For any life to be rich and full, it must be based on those principles that are most likely to produce happiness. Those principles are to be found in the teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no ambiguity in them. His teachings emphasize faith, love, giving and receiving, reaching out and reaching up. The Lord teaches us to pray, to worship, to preach, to teach, to seek salvation, to accept His atonement, and to embrace both our mortality and our eternal life. His teachings are gentle and pure and filled with power and light. In our search for wholeness, purpose, and happiness, we must begin with our Savior’s teachings, for God Himself has enjoined us: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5).
The Principle of Education
One of the sure principles on which to structure a successful life in mortality, and in the eons to come, is education. Both women and men should pay close attention to educational priorities. President Hinckley counsels: “First, educate your hands and your minds. You belong to a church which espouses education.” Speaking specifically to women he says: “To you young women may I suggest that you get all the education you can. Train yourselves to make a contribution to the society in which you will live. There is an essence of the divine in the improvement of the mind.”2 He then reminds us that “the glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth” (D&C 93:36). And as a last assurance that no amount of education will be wasted he affirms “‘whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection’” (D&C 130:18).
Sister Camilla Kimball, wife of President Spencer W. Kimball, said, “I would hope that every girl and woman . . . has the desire and ambition to qualify in two vocations—that of homemaking, and that of preparing to earn a living outside the home, if and when the occasion requires.” Sister Kimball also pointed out that many women must support themselves because they are single, others because of illness or death of their husbands, and still others because not all of their lives are completely filled with demands of a family, home, and children.3
How Do I Direct My Education?
For a woman, the question begins with what role she desires and then what role she will have the opportunity to play—and where and when. Should her education be targeted to a professional career, or should she just take a job until she marries? Supposing she never marries? At what point does she move into a full career mode? If she doesn’t marry and does not make early and directed career moves, will that delay have limited her future and her security?
It would seem that so much is out of her hands. How does she know whether or not to prepare to serve a full-time mission? If she marries during college years, whose education is priority, hers or her husband’s? Of course, if she marries, she’ll wish to have children, but suppose her options are closed by circumstances, divorce, or death, and she must become the breadwinner? Yet, within these ambiguities, there is so much that she can control as she looks at her whole life and makes the hard decisions and the right choices that will enrich and make purposeful an entire lifetime.
Will I Need to Prepare to Provide for Myself or Others?
Research conducted for the Church a few years ago revealed some sobering statistics about LDS women (more hopeful, but not that different from the statistics of other women). The data indicate that ninety percent of all our women will work outside the home for some portion of their lives, especially after their children are grown. More than half of those women will be the primary breadwinners at some time in their lives because that many will have been made single prior to reaching the age of sixty. About thirty-five percent will experience a divorce, eleven percent will be widowed, and three percent will not marry.
Faced with these sobering statistics, you should plan now for these realities because they will come whether planned for or not. Whether a young student or a mature woman, whether your education is beginning or continuing, select a field that will provide you with important and significant career skills and that will provide both a fair wage and personal satisfaction, if or when you enter the marketplace. The Lord would have you prepared to live in dignity.
Education should be ongoing, throughout an entire life, and should prepare you to enter and leave the marketplace without too great a penalty. President Gordon B. Hinckley recognizes the great challenge women face: “I would wish that all of you women might have the blessing of a happy marriage and a happy home and that you would not have to go out into the marketplace to labor for income. But I know that for some of you this may be a necessity, and you will be better equipped to do so if your hands and minds are trained.”4
Get That Degree as Quickly as You Can
Encouragement should be given to a woman currently in school to get her degree and if time and circumstances allow, her advanced degree. She should then move into the workforce as appropriate and put those skills to the best possible uses. It would be ideal if in the process her eternal partner should come along and she is able to marry and together with her companion set priorities and plan a life that will allow her to be a full-time mother during the appropriate seasons, or all seasons if that is possible and her desire. This choice should be recognized as a gift husband and wife give, each to the other, and not as a sacrifice on either part, although often in gifting there is something of sacrifice. Perhaps your premortal contracts did not include marriage in this sphere. In that case, that advanced degree will become very important as you live a full, rich, and meaningful life filled with other relationships and various arenas of service.
And for those women, married, with families, who do not have the luxury of staying home fulltime, do not despair. You can be a fully committed and wonderful mother, even if you aren’t able to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom. This will require serious priority-setting and deft planning. President Hinckley has said: “I recognize . . . that there are some women (it has become very many in fact) who have to work to provide for the needs of their families. To you I say, do the very best you can.” With deep understanding and empathy, he advises: “I know how some of you struggle with decisions concerning this matter. I repeat, do the very best you can. You know your circumstances, and I know that you are deeply concerned for the welfare of your children.”5
There is a celebrated passage in the chapter 31 of the book of Proverbs, which extols a virtuous woman, characterizing her worth as “far above rubies” (v. 10). The writer goes on to say, “The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her [for] . . . she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life” (vv. 11–12). Such a woman expands her reach and “girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms . . . [and] she stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet” (vv. 17, 20–21). We further learn that she clothes herself beautifully, that she makes fine linens and sells them to merchants, that she is covered with strength and honor. We are also told that “she openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her” (vv. 26–28). The tribute to such a woman concludes with this counsel: “Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates” (v. 31). What a great model for any woman to emulate.
Working through the Dilemmas
A young woman came to me to talk about her dream of becoming a great doctor and of an opportunity that would help her realize that dream. She was at the top of her class in medical school and had been offered a scholarship and a slot in one of the most sought after programs in surgery. She was twenty-seven at that time and felt she probably would not marry and that if she did, she would likely be too old to have children. My counsel to her was based on my sense of who she was: “Continue your pursuit to be a great doctor; however, I will be surprised if you do not marry. If you do marry, I cannot imagine that you will not have children.” I then asked her to answer a key question: “Is what you are planning, moving you toward fulfillment of all your missions? Will your career in surgery allow you to adapt your professional life to that of having a family?”
She later reported to me that she had taken the matter to the Lord and had listened to the prompting of the Spirit. Much to the dismay of her mentor, she had opted out of that envied surgical program. She had selected instead to specialize as a family practitioner, anticipating that would provide the flexibility that would allow her to fulfill other dreams as opportunities came along. She subsequently married, has two children, and practices medicine four days a week. She is grateful for having carefully and prayerfully thought through her options. Even so, at this point in her life, she would prefer to have more time at home with her children.
The Two-Edged Sword
For women, career choices are often two-edged swords. If you settle for less than you can be, you risk disappointing yourself and perhaps not having the wherewithal to provide for yourself and your family, should the need arise. If, however, you choose a demanding career, there may never be time enough for all you will need and want to do with your husband, children, home, church, community, and profession. There will likely never be enough of time or self to go around.
Only you can direct the acts of your play. Such direction is made easier when you truly accept your life as a series of missions, based on sacred contracts made in the long ago. Such vision gives you long-term perspective as you research and study the counsel of our prophets on this matter.
Living a Sequenced Life
There are ways, sequentially, to have it all. Who is not familiar with the beautiful passage from Ecclesiastes: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; . . . a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; . . . a time of war, and a time of peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8). But are you aware that the scripture concludes with, “I know that there is no good in them [the seasons], but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life” (v.12)?
Speaking at a woman’s conference, President James E. Faust compared the seasons of a woman’s life to the verses of a song: “It is in the soul to want to love and be loved by a good man and to be able to respond to the God-given, deepest feelings of womanhood—those of being a mother and a nurturer. Fortunately, a woman does not have to track her career like a man does. She may fit more than one career into the various seasons of her life. She cannot sing all the verses of her song at the same time.”6
And that’s what life is all about, figuring out how to determine the season you are in. Simplify and clarify the verses of your song so that as you live your life you will be ever alive to its beauty and alert to its purpose and promise and to your missions.
There Are Models to Follow
I have been fortunate to know many women who have worked through these ambiguities and found they could have it all, do it all—if they were wise enough to do it in the seasons thereof. One such woman is Ariel Bybee, formerly of the Metropolitan Opera Company, but now Artist in Residence and professor at a renowned university, where her husband heads a major department. The voice and presence of this consummate artist have always filled my heart with joy. To hear her sing “O Divine Redeemer” is to know and to worship the Savior. At my invitation, she generously and frequently came to Washington, D.C. to sing before ambassadors at our Visitors’ Center Christmas Gala, in our home, and at various civic and charity events that I chaired. In this process, I have come to love her more as a sister than as a friend. Through spoken word and song, we have shared our testimonies with many sisters in gospel settings.
As we have traveled together, laughed and wept together, I have become aware of her triumphs and her struggles. I have also learned of her priorities. It became apparent that her daughter, Neylan, who could not be stronger or more delightful in all ways pleasing to the Lord, has always taken priority over Ariel’s career. Next came devotion to home and Church, with years of service rendered as Relief Society president in her Manhattan Ward. Following the admonition of President Faust, Ariel Bybee has not tried to sing all the verses of her song at the same time.
Another who is more sister than friend is a great woman named Lucile Tate. You may have noticed her name as author of President Packer’s biography, Boyd K. Packer: A Watchman on the Tower. She has written the biographies of two other Apostles, LeGrand Richards, Beloved Apostle and David B. Haight: The Life Story of a Disciple, all begun after the age of 65, the final work completed at age 81. This remarkable woman embarked on a career as her first child entered college, never imagining what the Lord had in store. She and her husband entered BYU as freshmen at the same time as did their son, the eldest of their four children. Over the next fourteen years, she and her husband and all four children had earned their college degrees.
Lucile was fifty when she received her M.A. degree and began teaching in the humanities department at Brigham Young University. Their lives went on to include a move to Washington, D.C., a social service and a proselytizing mission, and the writing of other private and personal histories. Lucile trusted in the Lord’s promise of seasons and has thus been blessed. Because of her talents as a writer and the kind of person she is, she was entrusted with that rarest of privileges, that of coming to know at such a personal level and to record for history and for posterity, the biographies of living prophets.
What About the Empty Nest?
The mission of motherhood never ceases. It is a forever tie that crosses into the eternities. But the season of day-to-day mothering eventually comes to an end. After all, that is the goal in rearing children—to send them out from Eden and set them on their own path eastward.
As the last child leaves for college, marriage, or career, days that filled themselves to overflowing abruptly become days that must be filled by you. For some women, this is no problem. They are so pleased to be able to do so many of the things they’ve put aside until this time that the transition is easy. For so many others, this is an extremely heart-wrenching, frustrating time. After so much nurturing, providing, and guiding, they may feel their worth has been diminished. At this point, their spouse is likely still very engrossed in his career. There are few changes in his life, and generally he is very glad about that. Men generally do not recognize that their empty-nest wife is looking for a new job description, and they will not be instinctively attuned to her needs. As a woman, it’s up to you to plan for your next “growth ring,” your next career, your next mission.
Recently, a husband talked to me about the problem his wife, I’ll call her Norma, was having in filling her time with all the children out of the house. He was frustrated because he didn’t know how to help. He simply didn’t have enough emotional or physical energy to be the sole focus of her life. When Norma and I talked, she confided that she felt lonely, empty, and sad. She had waited all these years for this time when she and her husband could be together and do all the things they had put off during the children’s growing-up years, and now he didn’t even seem to know that she had reached a major crossroad in her life. Even more upsetting, he did not seem to want to be with her every evening but went on with his books, papers, sports programs, church assignments, and on and on. She felt as though she had lost her identity. Didn’t he know she couldn’t find herself? Who was she? What was she supposed to do? This was a time of enormous stress for her.
Consider the Next Growth Ring
I recently heard someone say that because of changes in health and longevity, age sixty is the new fifty, and age seventy-five is the new sixty-five. If we are going to live longer and more vigorously, it is more important than ever to plan and structure the stages of our lives.
Aren’t we lucky that we as women get to find new opportunities for growth and reinvent our career worlds periodically? I suggested this to Norma and also said that redefining her world wasn’t something her husband could do for her. She really needed to find something she wanted to do, discuss it with him, ask for his support, and then do it.
She said that would be difficult because there wasn’t anything she’d really thought seriously about doing. She had liked her life just the way it was and wasn’t inclined and didn’t feel qualified to start another career. Such an undertaking seemed very intimidating, and the idea of doing so took her too far out of her comfort zone. She didn’t want to spend all her time volunteering. She thought about going back to school, but that seemed to require more effort than she was willing to make.
After struggling for several months, she arrived at a solution. She found a part-time job, in an atmosphere where she was comfortable, where she could train as a customer representative. Because this position required her to talk to people, think her way through situations, and choose from alternative solutions, she was using a lot of creative energy. Learning new skills and making new friends was invigorating, and in doing so she gained confidence in her own abilities and a new direction in her life’s design. She also noted that by day’s end she was pretty much talked and thought out and welcomed just a little companionable togetherness with her husband without having to undertake huge outings or projects.
I talked to them both a few months into this new life-style, and they sounded so much happier. In addition to the job, Norma had also taken up walking three miles a day and was now down to a smaller clothing size and having fun with a new wardrobe. When she factored in church and home responsibilities, life was actually too full again, but she liked the new vistas, and her husband liked this new, vital woman she had become.
A situation that might have led to marital strife had instead provided an opportunity for Norma to re-create herself, identify new interests and avenues of expression, and retain her pleasant partnership with her husband.
Norma had aggressively embraced the three principles of happiness: control, connectedness, and challenge, and she was now happy. A similar crisis is faced when the season is retirement. You and your husband will need to follow many of the same steps to avoid unnecessary stress in your lives.
I am not suggesting that every woman should seek employment outside the home once her children are grown. For as we have discussed, though the time spent in the role of wife, mother, grandmother, friend, counselor, homemaker, and mentor may shift, the roles never cease. What I am suggesting is that you ask yourself the right questions, put your solutions to the Lord, and follow the course that will further your life’s mission.
What If You Never Marry or Are Left Alone?
The ways to achieve happiness and wholeness addressed in this book are applicable to all, single or married. However, I have been reminded by single friends of the unique challenges they face in establishing the connectedness so essential to that happiness and wholeness.
It was a valued colleague and friend who brought this forcefully to my attention. As she confided in me her feelings about never having married, I asked her at what point in her life she had realized she needed to create a whole life for herself, outside of a partnership.
She replied that she had only recently come to that realization, although she felt she had known it for some time. “For a long while I chose to run from it [creating a whole life] into comfortable, easy places, such as work, comfort food, doing things because they were expected of me—fulfilling obligations to family and friends, engaging in ‘pity parties.’ Now, most of those things were good, except for the pity parties and perhaps the comfort food, but certainly not all essential and definitely not all eternal.”
She continued, “I now realize I chose those things rather than asking the tough questions of myself at threshold moments: ‘Who am I now, what makes me happy now, what makes me feel whole now?’” Her regret: “I am now in my early fifties and just beginning to realize that I can no longer grow and progress unless I discover the answers to those questions.”
Establishing Avenues of Connectedness
Once you’ve done the hard work of identifying and honoring the person you are, there is a need to establish a lifestyle and a climate within that lifestyle where your need to be “connected” can be served.
As my colleague and I discussed that need, we compiled a list of “connectedness relationships” that will allow such needs to be met. We listed five such relationships, which are not only about people but about places.
1. Safe havens from the storm. It is helpful to have one or two exceptionally valued friends with whom, in a climate free from judging or judgments, you can talk about the grand and small moments of your life, let your hair down, and if need be, discuss freely your hurts and weaknesses. Such friends can be called at 3:00 a.m. for help, will take you to the hospital, bring you soup if you’re sick, and even help you see the error of your ways, if necessary. These are people for whom you will do the same as needed.
2. Relationships centering on family (your own or others). Essential to all is a place where and a group with whom you can celebrate holidays and other moments of life worthy of special remembrance, a place where you can interact with different generations and be called into a more intimate and personal service of others, a place where you are certain to find sympathy and love, particularly when life gets overwhelming, a place where you can go to recover from illness or the slights and trials that are just too hard to bear alone. Ideally, this is your own family home, but if such is not available to you, it would be important to “adopt” a family you could serve and who would wish to include and serve you.
3. Friends to share common causes and common interests. How delightful it is to have friends with whom you can share dinner out, a movie, season tickets to the symphony or theater—friends with whom you are comfortable taking a little or a big trip, or who you can count on to sit by you in church or accompany you to a social event. Although such people may not be a part of your day-to-day life, it is important to develop such associations.
4. A place where you are required to give unselfish service. There can be no real personal and spiritual growth unless you have a relationship in which the only gifts you are expected to give are time, patience, and unconditional love and where you are required and allowed to unselfishly nurture someone. To fill this need you might become a “hugger/rocker” in a hospital for chronically ill or abandoned babies, become a Big Sister, take the kids of a too busy mother to the park and out for hamburgers on a given Saturday of each month, sit by such a mother on Sundays and help out with the kids. You might “adopt” someone living in a rest home or connect one-on-one with an elderly person in your neighborhood or church. Offer service at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, or battered-women shelters, or join a service club—the list is endless. The need to nurture is God given and cries to be filled. The needs of others to be nurtured are similarly begging to be met.
5. Connectedness to the divine. At the beginning, end, and in the center of all of this is a very personal and intimate connectedness to and absolute trust in the divine. This personal walk with God also includes identifying with, aligning with, and fully participating in the life of His (and your) “church family.” It means accepting and joyfully participating in callings, and helping plan for and attending events and celebrations of this unique family. It means testifying, sustaining, and upholding as part of the worship of your days and the trust of your nights.
As we completed this list, my friend said that this discussion had brought to mind a much earlier interview with her bishop. “I was commenting on how much I appreciated the way the ward had accepted and included me. . . . They hadn’t treated me differently because I was single. . . . In other words, I felt like I belonged! In an almost immediate response he said, ‘It’s not the ward, it’s you!’ I have thought about that a lot since that meeting, and over time it has become a powerful motivator. I really am the one in control, and I really do get back what I give. If I want connection, then I must exert the effort and energy to connect.”
My friend concluded our discussion by saying, “I wish I had known many years ago the importance of identifying ways and people to fill all these basic needs. My greatest disappointments and trials have come as I have tried to find or have expected to find one friend to fill them all.”
Her journey has brought her to the conclusion we all, if we are lucky, will arrive at, and she expressed it in this way: “The thing that I have come to understand and for which I am most grateful is that the need for the divine connection is the most significant need in every human—and as we build that relationship, we can seek for the help needed to fill the other. That is my new journey.”
The Acts of Our Lives
Let me draw a parallel between the seasons of a woman’s life and the three acts of an opera, for there are many parallels.
In opera, as in life, Act I is generally filled with light and hope, nonsense and laughter. There is growth and learning and testing, both physical and spiritual. The instincts of youth turn to love and trust. In this process, life-shaping, life-altering, life-determining decisions are made by such seemingly simple decisions as with whom and what one aligns herself, who one selects as friends, where one goes to study, and what one selects for adventure. Love is found, love is lost, and hopefully love is found again. Passion, idealism, and the need to strike out on one’s quest to find one’s own “holy grail” make up the components of this act of the drama.
Act II of opera, as well as of our lives, is generally the act wherein one defines one’s self. As this more complete picture begins to emerge, it is shaded and highlighted by our preparation, our choices, and our actions. It is in this act that we often begin to experience the great highs and the great lows of our lives. Here one reaches out to form binding relationships. Opposites attract in life, as on stage. Partnerships are formed; but before long the concept of individuals within the partnership is lost, and we and the partner we have chosen set about fussing and adjusting and misunderstanding one another. Because of the consequences of the decisions we make in this phase of life, we often feel acted upon. We wonder why we have so little control, why we are so unsettled.
All of this is played out against a backdrop of ever-changing drama. Children are born—they grow—they struggle. Careers rise—careers fall. Loved ones die, relationships are reconfigured. By the end of this act, mature reality emerges if instead of numbly accepting the world’s definition of how we should think and what we ought to be, we have clearly identified and followed our own beliefs, interests, and promptings. If we are fortunate, we will have kept the innermost soul alive and solidified our deepest and most important relationships.
The text of our lives is established by Acts I and II. Act III provides commentary on all that has gone before. At this stage, it is unlikely that we can do much to alter the larger circumstances of our lives, but we can keep adapting, changing, and growing into ourselves and our closing years. Drawing upon our experience, maturity, and acquired wisdom, we are at this point in our lives more capable of tailoring appropriate responses to new circumstances and developments. No longer driven by the passions, selfishness, and undisciplined spontaneity of youth, we can show a certain spirit—an élan—that permits us to exercise unconditional love and practice unusual generosity. We can be the grand givers, the grand mothers, and the “grand dames,” witty and wise—never abashed, never unsettled. Upon turning seventy, Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley wryly commented that she reflected repeatedly on something she had heard Stephen L Richards’s wife say when Sister Richards was in her nineties: “Oh, to be seventy again! You can do anything when you are seventy.”7
Age can bring with it a delightful perspective. In quite another vein, entertainer Pearl Bailey said, “One has to be very old before one can learn to be amused rather than shocked.” Or one can respond tongue in cheek, as did Sophie Tucker when asked about a woman’s needs: “From birth to age eighteen a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five she needs a good personality. From fifty-five she needs cash.”8
I am haunted by the words of an unknown author: “Remember, every action of our life touches some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” As our seasons have been realized and utilized, we see etched in our countenances the fruits of our labors. Character replaces beauty as the lines of time defy artifice. It is at this time that the depth and breadth of the soul emerges as a Phoenix triumphant.
Ideally, it is at this stage that we become fully cognizant of the purifying power of repentance, the healing power of prayer, the sustaining power of faith, the joyous power of living in the present. It is at this time that we can look back over the whole of our lives and, if we are wise, clearly see that if any part had been missing we would not be whole. And if we’ve lived our lives in accordance with His will, we can conclude this act with the words of our Savior ringing in our ears: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).
Our eternal lives are also played out in three acts: the first act took place in our premortal existence; the second act is played out in mortality; and the third act will see us returning home to our Father in Heaven, where we will enjoy a glorious reunion with all our loved ones who have gone before. It is the third act, we are told, that ends with the phrase, “And they lived happily ever after.”
Notes to Chapter 5
^1. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, 194.
^2. Hinckley, “Rise to the Stature of the Divine within You,” 96.
^3. Kimball, Writings of Camilla Eyring Kimball, 60.
^4. Hinckley, “Rise to the Stature of the Divine within You,” 96.
^5. Hinckley, “Women of the Church,” 69.
^6. Faust, “A Message to Our Granddaughters,” 79.
^7. Hinckley, “Building the Kingdom from a Firm Foundation,” 10.