“As Women, We Exist in an Oft Unspoken Global Sisterhood,” Liahona, Dec. 2024.
As Women, We Exist in an Oft Unspoken Global Sisterhood
Relief Society provides the practical means of fulfilling Jesus Christ’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Three Sisters, by Kathleen Peterson
President Russell M. Nelson taught that “women have been blessed with a unique moral compass” and that women possess “special spiritual gifts and propensities” to sense human needs, to comfort, teach, and strengthen. Our communities depend upon women to perform in their unique roles as leaders, teachers, nurturers, healers, and peacemakers.
As women, we exist in an oft unspoken global sisterhood. The tides and seasons of our biology and the universality of the way we bear and nurture humanity connect us wordlessly across cultural divides and language barriers.
I have seen what women do when they connect with others through our sisterhood. I have seen women elevate one another in the midst of poverty. I have seen women care for, feed, and nurture children who are not their own. I have seen women stand to protect others from the ravages of war. When it lives up to its high ideals, Relief Society provides the practical means of fulfilling Jesus Christ’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves.
For example, in the last decade, during the refugee crisis in Europe, Church members pooled their time, talent, and treasure to assist many of the displaced peoples flooding into Europe. Their efforts helped relieve the desperate conditions in the migrant camps.
In the Philippines, Latter-day Saint women were concerned about the high rates of malnutrition in their communities and how it was affecting their own families. They learned more about the most common causes of malnutrition and its devastating lifelong effects. Ward and stake Relief Societies hosted nutritional screenings in Church buildings for member families and their neighbors and then taught parents about good nutrition. They referred those in need to local medical and community services that would provide treatment.
The impact of these women came as they worked for the good of the families in their communities. The most important and impactful work of women continues to be done close to us: when we care for our own children, teach a friend to read, patiently address the needs of an elderly neighbor, prepare a meal for the sick, or cry with a sister who is grieving.
I strive to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and follow His example in serving others. His daily discipline was always to reach out to those in anguish one by one: in private conversation with the socially outcast Samaritan woman at the well (see John 4); pausing to comfort the hemorrhagic woman in the crowd (see Luke 8:43–48); privately healing the young daughter of Jairus (see Luke 8:51–55).
While my current work involves efforts to improve conditions for women and children around the world, I realize that Christ’s most important requirement for me as His disciple is to recognize individual needs around me and respond with patience and love.
Organizations cannot reach every person in the world, no matter how well funded their programs, well penned their policies, or well developed their diplomacy. But through our global sisterhood, we can reach every single soul.
Whose life can you meaningfully improve today with an act of compassion? I urge you to pause for a moment and connect with our Heavenly Father, the highest source of inspiration, and then wait quietly for guidance from the Holy Ghost. I invite you to write it down and do it. I hope that simple exercise will help you recognize that our greatest success will be in unleashing the power of our global sisterhood.