For This, I Am Grateful

The Monument to Women Memorial Garden, a park with thirteen bronze statues depicting women in their various roles and financed by the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has always moved me. This tribute honoring women was dedicated at the Nauvoo temple in 1978, the year my only daughter was born, and I was enchanted from the start with both the poses and the feelings they inspired.

Apparently, the statues inspired S. Dilworth Young as well, because he installed copies of them at the Los Angeles temple and wrote an original poem for each one, inscribed on a plaque at the base. It was while attending the LA temple that I first saw the statues, and I was particularly taken with the one below.

Clearly, the woman portrayed here is fashioning a masterpiece of her own design. I'm not sure what the artist (Dennis Smith) intended, but I have always seen this particular bronze as a representation of the fact that each one of us becomes the artist of her own life, creating the woman she wants to become. Every choice we make, every thought we think leaves its mark on us, and the end result can and should be beautiful.

Saturday, following the baptism of a really neat young man, my husband floated the idea that we should invite all the young adults in his ward to Easter dinner. Many of them, living far from home and family, had no place to spend the day...so he wanted to make them welcome. For some reason, I was feeling tired and irritable, and I'm sorry to say that I didn't immediately agree to his plan. The thought of cooking truckloads of ham and funeral potatoes just didn't appeal to me, and I had selfishly imagined a quieter day with my family and the ward missionaries. Usually my husband defers to my wishes on matters like these, but he was particularly persistent. After much discussion, not all of it uplifting (on my part), I grudgingly went to the grocery store that evening and purchased 4 hams, the makings for 5 batches of funeral potatoes, 4 watermelons, a flat of strawberries, and enough cake and ice cream to sink a ship. I'm ashamed to confess that I spent the rest of the evening muttering about the prospect of preparing and serving my purchases.

Early Sunday morning, I woke up and began the process. Before leaving for church, I had cut all the fruit and cloved every ham. At the end of a stirring Easter meeting, where the young people we'd invited to dinner uplifted my soul and touched my heart with talks about the Savior and his selfless sacrifice (successfully reminding me that cooking a big meal amounts to very little sacrifice at all), I returned home in a much happier frame of mind. After putting the potato casseroles together, half-cooking the vegetables so they'd be easy to get on at the last minute, and getting the tables ready, I was ready to rumble.

Needless to say, we had a wonderful day with family AND friends, enriched by the smiles and spirits of the amazing young men and women in my husband's singles ward. Had we missed the opportunity to have them in our home, our Easter would have been much the poorer, and so would my spirit. Because I was "tired," I nearly deprived myself of a day that ended up nurturing me far more than it did my guests. In fact, this one has to go down in the Anderson annals as one of the best Easters ever. (And yes, I DID end my sugar fast!)

Like the woman featured in Dennis Smith's bronze statue, every day I am sculpting the person I want to become. There are far too many moments when the chisel slips in my hand, but it is the sum total of carving (thankfully) that will inform the finished object. What's more, our Savior––the Master Sculptor––is coming to the rescue. He has promised, by His grace, to fill in all the scrapes and gouges my poor tool makes. If I am willing, He will make of me a masterpiece.

For this, I am ever grateful.

(I need all the help I can get!)

=)