You are Enough and the Work of Heavenly Mother

I could not give up anything for Lent this year. The last two years were full of sacrifices and situations beyond my control. Instead I chose to repeat the phrase “you are enough” daily and hope to once again become comfortable with my worth and value.

Before the pandemic, I started to believe that I was enough and regularly drew on the strength of being confident in my enoughness. The anxiety of the pandemic and uncertainty for the future burned away that confidence. I was back to a beginning I had hoped never to see again.

For most of my life, I have not known that I was enough. I was continually reminded at home and at church that my efforts to be a good person would never look like the perfection that God required. Even Jesus wasn’t enough for salvation, which required additional ceremonies, unequal covenants, and the wearing of uncomfortable underwear night and day until death. It would all end with a reward that strongly indicated women, as a group, were not enough.

This not enoughness emanated from an image of God as Heavenly Father. He was never satisfied, didn’t understand my circumstances, couldn’t make allowances or exceptions, and held a great deal of disdain for my humanity. He created my humanity and then declared that it would never be enough. Only perfection would be enough, though it was incompatible with my human nature and He knew that when he created me. Heavenly Father was a hungry tyrant always laying down tests of loyalty and increasingly required more sacrifice, which never seemed to bring the blessings of health and wealth that He promised. This Heavenly Father loves a show of masculine strength, has little time for the weak, and sends emissaries who do the same, without apology.

So when Mormons of all genders talk about, write about, pray to, and seek for Heavenly Mother, what they are saying is that they have huge, gaping God-wounds. They are saying that they need the love of a God who loves them with a love that that is loving. They are saying that they are exhausted with attempts to please a Heavenly Father who is not inclined to recognize their efforts as valuable. Heavenly Mother isn’t a weapon, She is a bandage for souls in need of divine medicine. She tells her seekers you are enough because she is not worshipping a hollow image of a narcissistic bully god. She is tending to those who have been pushed out and marginalized, because she knows what we experience and feel. She is with us in our pain. She celebrates with us in our joy.

So on this Easter morning, remember that She sent her Son. Whatever we may or may not believe about Jesus, they are both in the business of liberation. The first work of liberation She can perform in our lives is to tell you you are enough.

This post is part of a series, Contemplating Heavenly Mother. Find more from this series here.