Present word count of WIP:  55,431 (Yay, I’m finally moving ahead again!)

One of my favorite and most revealing stories from my tomboyish childhood (I was only three at the time this occurred) was recounted by my father in his personal history as follows:

“Christmas was fun…Tanya wanted and got cowboy boots and hat, plus a gun belt and six-shooters. She slept that  night wearing everything but the hat…Later we were to learn that she had developed a belief that boys get all the toys. In their shared bedroom, Jeff’s bed, especially made for us in Athens, had large deep drawers for the toys. When they finished playing they had to put their toys away in their assigned drawers. But Tanya apparently thought this meant all the toys were Jeff’s. We didn’t know this until almost a year later. At a friend’s party in Athens, Greece, she told a guest that ‘only boys can have toys.’ This taught us that words are only one of the languages that reach our youngest children.”

I couldn’t help but be reminded of that story as I read Tristi Pinkston’s short, but marvelous book, WOMEN OF STRENGTH. As she points out so well, and in so many ways, a woman’s true strength comes from within, not from any outward “toy” like a career, job, educational degree, high-placed connection, or luxury possession. Within the LDS Church, even a woman’s calling in the ward is no indication of her real power, except in the way she fulfills or magnifies it.

She discusses the source of our strength and how it meshes perfectly with the nature of a woman. Separate chapters are devoted to our strength as wives, singles, or parents. She talks about how we are less without men and how they are less without us. In the eyes of God, men and women are equal and always have been.

We demonstrate our strength, she says, in the ways we keep God’s commandments, develop our talents, and display virtue in our lives. Most importantly, she calls on women everywhere to step forward in this age of slipping morality and take a stand for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world.

If you ever doubted your own worth as a woman, or know a wife, sister, mother, daughter, niece, granddaughter, or friend who has, this book has strength, in and of itself, to lift the insecure soul of any woman.

Originally posted 2012-05-25 12:42:31.