For example, in this video, an LDS young woman from South Africa shares a poem she wrote entitled “Significant in Every Way.” As described on YouTube, the poem “celebrates the divine nature of young women as daughters of God and encourages them to be examples to others.”

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I didn’t do much imaginary play when I was young. Instead, I liked to ride my bike and watch cartoons like G.I. Joe and Transformers. But, that all changed when Princess Diana was married on live television. During a slumber party, my best friend Melanie and I woke up very early to watch Lady Diana marry Prince Charles. We could not believe how long the train on her wedding dress was! We were mesmerized.

After seeing a Royal Wedding, nothing was the same for Melanie and me. We wore capes and ate crumpets; we carried scepters and wore tiaras. On certain occasions it was necessary to humble ourselves and speak to the peasants (our siblings.) We fancied ourselves princesses.

What a paradigm shift! The day before I was just a regular girl who liked to ride her bike to buy ice cream cones at the local drug store, and the next day I was a princess. All I needed was a new perspective.

In the movie, A Little Princess, there is a very poignant scene that I found enlightening. Of course I’m always a day late and a dollar short, so when I went to search for the quote from the scene I noticed that other LDS authors had found the same scene meaningful. But I want to share it with you again, just in case it gives you a new perspective on who we women (and men) really are. The scene involves Miss Minchin, a frightful governess and Sarah Crewe, a recent orphan.

Miss Minchin: Don’t tell me you still fancy yourself a princess? Child, look around you! Or better yet, look in the mirror.

Sarah Crewe: I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses. All of us. Didn’t your father ever tell you that? Didn’t he?

We believe that all women are daughters of God. We believe that we are literal spirit children of a Heavenly Father who loves us and we love Him.

In an October 2004 General Conference talk entitled “The Women in Our Lives” a Prophet of God, Gordon B. Hinckley, taught the world about the sanctity of womanhood. He did so by recounting the creation of the world:

There came first the forming of heaven and earth, to be followed by the separation of the light from the darkness. The waters were removed from the land. Then came vegetation, followed by the animals. There followed the crowning creation of man. Genesis records that “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).
But the process was not complete.
“For Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
“And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
“And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman” (Gen. 2:20–23).
And so Eve became God’s final creation, the grand summation of all of the marvelous work that had gone before. (emphasis added)

President Hinckley continued,

There are some men who, in a spirit of arrogance, think they are superior to women. They do not seem to realize that they would not exist but for the mother who gave them birth. When they assert their superiority they demean her. It has been said, “Man can not degrade woman without himself falling into degradation; he can not elevate her without at the same time elevating himself” (Alexander Walker, in Elbert Hubbard’s Scrap Book [1923], 204).

But my favorite quote from his talk comes next.

Every woman is a daughter of God. You cannot offend her without offending Him.

All women are daughters of God. We are not orphans clinging to childhood imaginations. We are daughters of a King who has not abandoned us. On down days, when everything is going wrong, I pray. I pray for the reassurance that God cares and knows of my suffering. Without exception, I have felt His love pour down into my soul. My situation may not improve, but my capacity to understand and endure does. Through these experiences I have gained a relationship with a loving Heavenly Father who, just like Sarah Crewe’s father in the movie quoted above, has told me that I am a princess. All girls are.

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In today’s society we are supposed to be sorely afraid of aging. I mean SORELY, as in going through massive amounts of pain (and money) to look younger than we are. I think this is messed up. Age has it’s benefits. Not that I’m over the hill or anything, but I’ve got a few years on me. My husband and I will celebrate our 17th anniversary this summer. I am a mother to four children, the oldest being 14. There are qualities that come with those years I wouldn’t trade for anything. So I warn you in advance, I will be keeping my wrinkles to prove it.

Today I realized one of those qualities, gained from the passage of time – I no longer have an urge to prove my worth. Seriously. There have been times in my life I claimed this, not true then. I did hope to make it true though.

The number of hours and overburdened thoughts that went into proving my worth: inestimable. Everyone was a participant in my value contest: family members, friends, church leaders, casual acquaintances. I wanted everyone to like me; it felt necessary for them to like me and to think I was an amazing person. Now I know that to be happy = truly being myself. Which means I cannot be happy guessing what other people think I should do, so that they will think I am good.

It has taken me this many years to realize what Popeye told me all those years ago on Saturday morning cartoons, “I yam, what I yam!” (translation for you non-Popeye speakers: “I am what I am!”)

This is me (not the yam!). I’m a work in progress. I don’t claim perfection. I’m doing the best I can. I think you’re doing the best you can too – so let’s just get along. If you don’t want to get along, I’ll do what I can to find common ground because I like people.

Honestly, not feeling the need to prove myself may have come from more than just the sheer accumulation of years. My chronic health problems have pulled me down a peg or two and opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t fooling anyone. And if I was, I don’t have the energy or time to continue foolin’.

For example, yesterday when my niece exclaimed, “I can’t sit on that chair, it’s all sticky!”

I smiled and said, “Sorry sweetie, we have a lot of kids in this house, things get sticky.”

That was the moment I knew something had changed inside of me. Because the old me would have rushed over with a sponge, embarrassed, coming up with some story of having pancakes that morning or something. It is what it is. I do hope that people won’t put off visiting with us because they get stuck to the chairs!

Another factor in my calling it quits to the value game is my relationship with God. I’m no saint, I’ve got a lot of work to do (some days I wonder how He looks upon backward progress). But, I know He looks at a person’s desires, at their heart, in the grand scheme of things. He is the only judge that really matters. And honestly, I don’t feel much judgment coming from Him, mostly love and encouragement (sometimes by way of a kick in the pants).

Don’t get me wrong though. I still care about others’ feelings and their comfort in my home. I care that I am a friend. I just don’t base my value as a human being on it any longer.

So now that we’ve come to the end of this and you are sick of hearing about me, I will say:

You do know all of this applies to you, too. Keep your wrinkles, stop overthinking what others think, you’re a work in progress, find a way to be OK with God and let’s just enjoy sticking to each other’s kitchen chairs. Because in the end there’s no proving it, it is a known fact – you are worth something. A lot, in fact.

For more First Person essays, please click here.

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