“Awake, Arise, and Come Unto Christ”

I've been waiting for the 2008 Women's Conference transcripts to be published. When Brittany shared part of this message I looked up the talk by Sheri Dew and I LOVE IT!

I think it's just the motivation I need to put myself in gear. I've been in a bit of a slump lately and am lacking in energy and motivation for just about everything. It seems like I'm always trying (or sometimes not even trying) and never quite getting there (can't get there if you don't try at all, I suppose). But as long as I keep on keepin' on, I hope the Lord will make up the rest somehow.

Go and read the talk for yourself, because it's great and it will make you laugh and smile and feel good and make you want to go forth with cheer, but here are a few of my favorite highlights:

“Awake, Arise, and Come Unto Christ” (see Moroni 10:31–32). I invite us to awake to who we are and to the expansive reach of our influence as women of God. To arise by making of our lives a ministry, as the Savior did. And to come unto Christ by walking away from the world."

Here are just a few of Lucifer’s lies: That men are smarter, have all the power, and are more important, so if we want to have influence we should be more like them; that marriage and family are confining; that motherhood is menial and a waste of any talented woman’s time; that women are perpetually frazzled and failing; and that a woman’s value is based on her size, shape and what she accomplishes outside the home."

Here is the truth about womanhood. Our Father gave His daughters a divine endowment of gifts that give us unique influence. ... Our Father also gifted us with the nature to nurture, keen sensitivity to the Spirit, selflessness, discernment, and heroic faith. No wonder our Father placed us at the heart of the family and thus at the center of the plan of salvation. We are the Lord’s secret weapon. Pre-mortally, when our Father described our role, we must have shouted for joy because of the ennobling stature He gave women in His kingdom. The world won’t tell us this stunning truth, but the Spirit will."

The Apostle Paul said it best: “It is high time to awake out of sleep . . . The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Romans 13:11–12).

If we truly want to walk away from the world, our single most important pursuit is to seek to hear the voice of the Spirit. I don’t think it will be possible to survive spiritually in the last days without the Holy Ghost as our constant guide. The Spirit is the ultimate protector and judge between good and evil. The Spirit can detect the slightest variance from truth and alert us to all spiritual danger, because the Holy Ghost speaks “of things as they really are” (Jacob 4:13), rather than as they appear to be, and shows us “all things what [we] should do” (2 Nephi 32:5).

There is no simple formula for learning to hear the voice of the Spirit. But purity is key, for it makes us a more pure receptacle. The scriptures are key, because they teach the language of revelation. The temple is key, for there we learn how to come out of the world and into the presence of God while in mortality. And regular personal worship is key.

We are followers of Jesus Christ. And we have been His followers and have loved Him for a long, long time. Nothing is more important than working and sacrificing and enduring for Him. Let us be the generation of women that finally walks away from the world. If we will Awake to who we are, Arise by making of our lives ministries, and come unto Christ by steadily becoming more holy, we will have a degree of influence the world and the kingdom of God have never felt before—an influence that has no limit and no end. We can do this. I know we can."