My Weird Project: Women of the Scriptures Blog Series

Prepare yourselves:  A series of posts about women in the scriptures and the Young Women values! But first, a bit of explanation…

Being the ~feminist~ that I am, I love to read stories about my fellow ladies in our religious canon. Knowing this, my grandma gave me some cheesy women-in-the-scriptures baseball cards for my birthday. Each card bore one of the Young Women values [click here to know more about these values] and had a picture of a woman from the scriptures who exemplified the said value. To my own surprise, I took an interest in these cards and found myself deeply analyzing each one. Do I know why? Nope, still don’t. But these cards both fascinated and bothered me.

Things that I noted: For one, I thought it was cool that they found so many scriptural women (I mean, from what I knew, there weren’t that many). However, there was one thing that irked me (other than the quirky drawings on them – those things were weird, man) – the value designated for each woman. Some of them were great, but others just didn’t fit. I mean, who the heck are “The Women in the Wilderness”? And where in heaven’s name is Eve?! I stewed for weeks about these dumb LDS novelty cards. Then I decided I could take no more. I wanted to correct the mistakes made on these tiny pieces of cardstock – I needed to set the record straight.

My task: to search the scriptures and make my own list of women for each Young Women’s value, gosh darnit.

So I read, and I googled, and I searched. In the process, I found this AMAZING website called Women in the Scriptures that I highly recommend – check it out if you have a few minutes. This site really helped me formulate a good list.

In my research, I discovered a couple things.
1) My presumption that there were more applicable women to the YW values was correct but
2) There are SO MANY MORE women than I thought. Holy cannoli. I found that I could not narrow down my list to one-person-per-value. I cheated and made it two-people-per-value. Hope you don’t mind.

Now, after searching  f o r e v e r , I thought that I would share with you the results. Click any of the values listed below to read what I have found! (and don’t worry, Eve is there.)

FAITH
DIVINE NATURE
INDIVIDUAL WORTH
KNOWLEDGE
CHOICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
GOOD WORKS
INTEGRITY
VIRTUE

 

 

 

Women of the Scriptures: Good Works

Ruth   Ruth 1

The classic Old Testament tale of service. When all the men in her family died and she had no means to support her daughters-in-law, Naomi told Orpah and Ruth to leave her so they could have a chance to remarry. Orpah tearfully left, but Ruth, seeing that Naomi would have no means to take care of herself, decided to stay. Ruth knew that this would mean that she would likely never remarry. She knew she would live in squalor for the rest of her life. She knew that she would be shunned by society for being a Moabitess. But she stayed anyway because she loved Naomi. And as we see later in her story, Ruth is immensely blessed for her act of kindness and charity. God will do the same for us. Perhaps he won’t send us a knight in shining armor, but He will reward us for serving His children.  

 

Rahab   Joshua 2, James 2:25

Talk about a dramatic story. You are living a less-than-respectable life to support your family. An infamous wandering nation is closing in on the city and two spies decide to stop by your house. You could turn them in and save your own skin, or you could hide them and help them. What a predicament. But Rahab knew that these were good men and that some Supreme Being was with them and their people. Even though there would be dire consequences if she were caught (and she almost was, they knew she had spies in her home), she helped the Jews achieve victory over Jericho. She is a great example to modern-day women of courage and compassion, and also that no matter our background, we can still do the work of the Lord.

Forest Man

photo: Huffington Post

.
“The purpose of life
is to contribute
in some way to
making things better.”
Robert F. Kennedy

“Are we being good ancestors?”
Jonas Salk

 

What would you do to save your home?

One man planted trees. His name is Jadav “Molai” Payeng, and his story is a remarkable one.

His home is in northeast India on Majuli Island. Though Majuli is the largest river island in the world, its position makes it vulnerable to flood waters that recede its shores every year. So vulnerable, in fact, that in the past 100 years, Majuli has lost 70% of its landmass, and at this rate, scientists predict that in the next couple of decades the island could completely disappear.

Rather than sit idly by, waiting for powerful river waters to wash his home away, Payeng planted trees.

Who Is My Neighbor?

The Good Samaritan  by Walter Rane

“Resolve to be tender
with the young,
compassionate with the aged,
sympathetic with the striving,
and tolerant of the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been
all of these.”
Lloyd Shearer

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”
John F. Kennedy

One day while hanging out in a local Starbucks with a mixed group of intellectuals and religious people, Jesus and a Lawyer got into a little neighborly discussion.

A certain lawyer stood up, saying, Master, What shall I do to inherit eternal life?
Luke 10:25

The question was simple and straightforward, but the intention behind the question was not.  It was a trap.  This Lawyer was trying to lure Jesus into a debate.  Jesus wasn’t in the mood for contention, so he turned the tables and answered the Lawyer’s question with a question.

Lift

.

“We make a living by what we get,
but we make a life by what we give.”
Winston Churchill

“He is not great who is not greatly good.”
William Shakespeare

“For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10 KJV

The Apostle Paul said those last words to the Ephesians, but they were intended for us as well.  We are created by a great God to do great works.  He invites us to use this life to look out for one another – to serve.

I saw the most honest and inspiring example of this on a video message. Had to share it with you.