Listen to Jen’s podcast interview here:
I’m a mom to three kids and a bulldog. I’m an Army wife and a clinical psychologist. Mormonism is part of my heritage and my culture. It is my language of faith. I served a mission because I love serving others and I love my Savior. I have been inspired by reading the stories of Jesus and discovering the role of women in the gospel.
There is evidence to suggest that Jesus not only found women to be equal to men, but he included them in his ministry. He taught them. He listened to them. He advocated for them. Women were present when he died on the cross and women were there when he was resurrected. It was a woman who proclaimed that news to the apostles of Jesus.
I love to hear these stories, to know that I am of value, not because I am to be held on some pedestal or because of what does or doesn’t emerge from my womb, but because I am a child of God. Equal to my brothers. There is so much for women to claim in holding the priesthood in their own right, and so much for men to gain from that shared power. I believe women should be ordained because I hope that my daughter will grow up in the gospel knowing and feeling that she is an equal, rather than being told that she is “separate, but equal” from her brothers.