"Keep Your Heels, Head, and Standards High"

Do you ever feel like your self worth is in the toilet?  How can we increase our own self worth when we live in a society that seems to tear it down so frequently? These are questions that I have pondered over the last couple of weeks as I prepared to speak to a group of girls and women on the topic, “Keeping Your Heels, Heads, and Standards High.” After much thought I believe the answer lies in this phrase, recited each week in the Young Women’s meetings throughout the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:

“We are daughters of our Heavenly Father Who Loves Us and We Love Him”

When we really understand this and come to believe it 2 things will happen:

1. Our self worth will increase

2. Our desire to be like Him will increase (which will in turn increase our sense of self worth)

As girls and women we are hard on ourselves! We feel guilty too often, we compare too frequently and we feel like we don’t measure up much of the time. I am surrounded by 8 sisters in law and 2 sisters who are enormously talented. One is an amazing photographer. Some are super talented and creative. Others have patience far beyond mine. One speaks a number of foreign languages and another is an amazing mother to a son with significant physical handicaps. I have a mother in law who keeps a spotless house and my own mother can sew anything, including my wedding dress which was a ginormous creation straight out of the early 90’s, with big sleeves, a giant bow and enough pearls and sequins to blind you.

If I wasn’t careful I could easily feel like I don’t measure up.  The only foreign language I speak is Dave's middle of the night nonsense talk and we all know I'm not going to get the "Good Housekeeping Award" anytime soon.  But guess what?  I know that I have a Father in Heaven who loves me. Little old me! I think about each of my six children with all of their different talents and abilities and we are no different in the site of our Father in Heaven. As women we aren’t all meant to be the same—how boring would life be if we were? (Like really--how many Kristyn's do you want running around this world?  The sock piles would be enormous.)

In the October 2014 General Conference, Pres. Uchtdorf (an apostle of the Lord) said this:

“He sees you clearly--He knows you as you really are. And He loves you--today and always! Do you suppose it matters to our Heavenly Father whether your makeup, clothes, hair, and nails are perfect? Do you think your value to Him changes based on how many followers you have on Instagram or Pinterest? Do you think He wants you to worry or get depressed if some un-friend or un-follow you on Facebook or Twitter? Do you think outward attractiveness, your dress size, or popularity make the slightest difference in your worth to the One who created the universe?”

When we recognize our role as a daughter of God, our self worth can’t help but to increase, and as we begin to understand who we are, our desire to follow His path will increase—even when the world may tell us otherwise.

Now, more than ever we women must be an example of who the Lord knows we are—His daughters. We must, in essence, act as a daughter of God would act.

Former Young Women general president Margaret D. Nadauld taught:

“The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.”

I fear that as women we are losing site of what it means to be a true daughter of God and by doing so, our own self worth is diminishing rapidly. It’s not easy to stand up for what we believe is right. It’s rarely popular, particularly if social media is to be any sort of measuring stick. Just in this last week I have seen several FB posts that have caused me to pause (ok--really they just riled me up) and consider that my morals and views seem to be going against the grain of society. Modesty, clean language, the divine role of motherhood, treating our spouses with respect and more seem to be viewed as unnecessary, old fashioned or intolerant. And all the while we wonder why we are unhappy?

I believe the answer to happiness can be found in returning to a virtuous life. I recognize that this might not be a popular idea but I absolutely believe that a virtuous life builds our confidence and will lead to powerful women with a increased self worth. Women, let’s have the confidence to act as God would have us act, to understand our worth as His daughter and to join the call for a return to virtue.