Months ago, I was talking to someone that high council Sunday is the worst because it guarantees the most speaking time per year in every ward to the same man. We hear from the high councilmen in total more than we hear from anyone else in the Church, including the prophet.
This bothers me. It was something I was praying about. From what I've seen in this stake, it's the first time they seem to rotate everyone on the council each month. That alone is a good change, but I'm so tired of having incredible female leadership I never see or get to interact with.
Our stake is now sending a woman leader from the stake to speak on every third Sunday with the high councilman. They're creating a standing reservation for women to speak in sacrament meeting every month.
This was my first time seeing and meeting my stake Relief Society president. She gave a phenomenal talk about the sacrament. And the high councilman who was with us this week opened his talk by expressing his confidence in her. They've both lived in this area for many decades, so they've served together in the Church for many years. It was lovely and it was the nicest fulfillment of what I was imagining in my head when I previously criticized the formula for "Dry Council Sunday" in saying it needed improvement.
I went up to the stand afterwards to thank her and introduce myself, and to let her know that her presence was the answer to a prayer for me. We had a wonderful conversation and I confided in her what this means to me personally, my history of feeling frustration with gender dynamics in the Church. She listened so well and embraced me, thanked me for sharing, and said she would let the rest of the leadership of the stake know that this is a meaningful and well-received change.
All this to say: when there is something about the way the Church functions that is painful and unfair, don't keep it to yourself. Tell God in prayer. Pour out your soul about what you think and feel. Leave that hurt on the altar where it belongs, especially if it never should've been yours to carry. Trust your Heavenly Family to know how to help and rescue you.
It may not happen immediately, but change will come. I've seen this so many times in my church experience. God hears us and cares when we suffer. That suffering is held and known completely in the body of Christ, where it can also be healed. And in time, change will come.
