I have been reading about Mary in Jesus the Christ, by Elder Talmage. She is so gentle and meek. Her words at the annunciation by the angel Gabriel, “Behold the handmade of the Lord; be it according to thy word,” always evoke a sense of femininity within me that I have never experienced from the world’s view of women. It brings the sense of being a woman in a way different from what I’m usually told.

Usually, pictures slither into my view and mind of other women: women whose bodies are pristine and overtly sexual. These pictures always make me view my body with disdain and loathing. I critique and nitpick. I feel less of a woman. I lay in bed at night, aware of the extra folds and stretched markings and dimpled scars, and wonder, what’s attractive about this vessel?

An odd silver lining greets me every month that washes away all of the worldly-caused insecurities. A reminder of what being a woman means. It starts with a cleansing, one that in my youth used to frustrate and baffle me. Oilier hair, blemished skin, intense internal upheaval. My body, without any leadership or guidance from me, starts in on these pre-mortally determined preparations. The old and unused resources are removed, with efficiency and exactness. The inner-workings of my earthly womb are reset and strengthened – ready once again for the ability to create new life. A ritual of divine purpose. And it happens every month, usually. A reminder that God and I are creators, one. Motherhood is the ultimate purpose and glory of this, my earthly, and one day exalted, body.

Then, too, there are the associations with good men who have gone against the grain of society, who looked beyond my imperfections to see my inner soul and divine nature (sometimes in spite of my own strugglings), and have reflected back that attractiveness that is me. Such an incredible healing.

I think about the unique and gentleness that is a woman. I know from massage school that my skin is different than that of a man’s. It has a softness that resonates with my inner nature. Men’s skin is not rough or coarse, but theirs has a protecting strength different from my own. A tensileness that betrays his nature as much as the softness of my own betrays mine. We are the same species, but different in body and soul. And I am grateful for that.

I wish each woman would stop and ponder on what a gift her body is. I wonder, how much tanning and carving and unnaturalness would fall by the wayside, as more loving and peaceful ways to tend to it would be revealed? How many insecurities, barnacles of weighty superficiality, would be scraped from the minds and hearts of good women? How many marriages would be healed because women would feel infinitely better about their images, safer about revealing it, and in many ways, feel more secure for using it in affections and intimacies with their husbands? How many friendships would form if jealousies and envyings and pride were not given vain soils to root-in and fester?

I know my body is, as a friend states, “not a perfect vehicle, but a perfecting vehicle.” If I see it as more supple than bloated, more divine than damaged, and more eternal than aging – would I know my nature more clearly? I believe I would.

I feel more of a woman than I did a decade ago. I have yet to marry or have children, but my nature has rested upon me well. I am softer, softer even than only last week. I hold the gentleness that I feel blossoming in me as a sign of my traveling on a correct course. I feel the sorrows and the pains of others more intuitively. I see the needs of little hearts as urgent. I know the succor that comes from forgiving and compassion.