Rich in Contentment!

     One of the hardest parts of my grieving process has been talking about the Priesthood.  I come from a home where literally "every hour was blessed by the strength of Priesthood power'" as the primary song goes.
     Kendall May, my dad, was one of the greatest men I ever knew to hold the Priesthood.  He honored his priesthood by serving others, and consistently making available to us Father's blessings.  Though I have been away from home for 4 years, I always felt his priesthood influence in my life as we would talk on the phone and he would give me his special patriarchal counsel about challenges concerning finances, dating, school and hard choices.  He was entitled to special revelation for our family and  he responsibly used this revelation to guide us.  I know at times this responsibility was overwhelming to Him.  He will forever be an example to me of what a Priesthood holder should be and  must do to honor the power God has conferred upon him.

    So you can imagine, that when He and my mother passed away, I was concerned about what we would do with out that power of the priesthood in our family. I guess I took it a bit for granted.  Since than it has been difficult to talk about the priesthood.

    The priesthood had so richly blessed my life through my dad, I can not talk about one and not associate it with the other.  I had to walk out of one particular Relief Society lesson because I was on the verge of breaking into pieces thinking about not just someone I missed so dearly but something I felt had been for the most part removed from my reach.

   Sure, I knew I had home teachers, cousins, uncles and my bishopric there to bless me.  I knew that.   But somehow I still felt detached.  It weighed on the rims of my thoughts for these last couple months.

     This General Conference, prayers I didn't know I was praying were answered. I guess I didn't understand about the priesthood. Some ways I still don't, but I have learned this weekend, that the Priesthood is still in my life. I particularly found hope in the talks given by Carole Stephens, Elder D. Todd Christofferson and Elder Neil L. Anderson.  Each speaker spoke about The Power of the Priesthood and how women can and do have access to it each day, by keeping covenants they make with God .   Carole Stephens quoted M. Russell Ballard saying " God is generous with His power.  All men and women have access to this power for help in their own lives. All who have made sacred covenants with the Lord, and who honor those covenants, are eligible to receive personal revelation, to be blessed by the ministering of angels, and to commune with God."

    So I started thinking about how I did have the priesthood in my life, and ways that it blesses me still.  I thought about how my parents were sealed by special priesthood power and how that power will allow me to see them again and lets our family to be together forever.  I thought about when I take the sacrament, it is blessed by priesthood holders, and that allows me to renew my covenants from baptism to help me through every week.   I thought about how someday when I receive my endowment, I will be further blessed by the priesthood, as long as I keep my covenants I make there.  

    I particularly enjoyed the stories about single women, who felt badly that their families did not have worthy priesthood holders to bless them.  But the talks also told about how as the mothers were blessed by the priesthood when they read scriptures, and taught the gospel to their children and served in their divine roll as mothers.

   I have the priesthood in my life still.  Though, I am a woman, though it is just me and my sisters,  we have the priesthood in our lives still.   I didn't understand, but I do understand more as I have stopped to look at the blessings the priesthood still brings to me and my sisters.   

    One of my other favorite moments in conference came from Elder Bednar when he said that "a grateful person is rich in contentment. An ungrateful person suffers in the poverty of endless discontentment."  

I know that as we examine the ways we are blessed we will be rich in contentment!  You will find even greater gratitude that God  does love His sons and His daughters and gives them His power to bless them, and to bless others. I am going to ask Heavenly Father tonight to help me recognize the blessings the priesthood has already given and the blessings it still can even though my go-to-guy had a temporary reassignment . :) The Power of the Priesthood, it's real folks, man or woman.