I love the LDS Church. I have been a member my whole life. I met the most amazing young man in the Church, and we were married and later sealed in the temple. We were blessed with a gorgeous baby girl who was loved the minute we found out we were expecting her. She brings us happiness every day. My husband is the best father for our daughter I could have wished for. He holds her at night and comforts her when she is scared, and she is a real daddy’s girl. Every time we are in a new place she clings on to us for safety, like a baby koala. She feels loved, nurtured, and safe with both of us. I have learned that my husband’s potential as a father is the same as mine as a mother–the only difference being that I carried our daughter for nine months and went through labor and now feed her during the day, while my husband feeds her at night. So for me, the explanation that the priesthood is given to men because they cannot achieve what women can through motherhood sounds wrong. It diminishes what a wonderful father my husband is, regardless of the priesthood.
More importantly, I feel that refusing the blessing of priesthood authority to women demeans women themselves, even if just on a subconscious level. As my daughter grows up, I want her to have the opportunity to develop all of her talents, but she cannot do that without real equality in the Church. While she will be able to develop all of her talents outside the Church, she will always be restricted by her sex within the Church. Telling women they can not receive the priesthood because they are too good already and do not need it sounds to me like what you say to a child who is being bullied at school because you do not have the courage to go and make things right there. It is time to stand up and say we are ready for more. We are ready to explore our full potential as daughters of Heavenly Parents while we are here on Earth.
As a mother, I want to be able to look my child in the eye and know I have done my best to help her reach that full potential. I do not want her to one day feel like she only deserves second best because she is a woman and that it is the way God wants it.
If we want to honestly say to the world that the Church treats men and women equally, then we need to give equal opportunity to both. Men and women each have fatherhood and motherhood and the opportunity to magnify those roles, and men and women should likewise have equal opportunity to exercise priesthood authority to bless mankind.
I know the Church is true, and I know if we ask, we shall receive. I believe in my heart and have a testimony that it is time for women to be ordained.