Excusing myself, I quickly entered the children's nursery where I was astounded at what was happening. There was our Relief Society President sitting at a table with about seven out-of-control preschoolers. Flustered, she looked up at me as if I was her rescuer, then she blurted out that the other helper had needed to leave. "Since you are so good with children, could you handle things yourself?" Without waiting for an answer, she quickly fled out of the room. I was stunned for a moment, then I quickly sat down with the children. For an hour we had a fun time together making crafts.
Later, I tried to make sense of what had happened that day. This president was a mature woman with gray hair, which at that time, I thought made her amazingly competent in doing everything. In fact, she had been impressive in all I had seen her do up to this point. She graciously greeted women, led meetings, planned activities, gave lessons, and cared for those in need. She was what I hoped to be "when I grew up".
But, I had just seen this same woman dissolve into a panicky puddle when faced with doing crafts with a few toddlers, while I handled it easily and even had a great time. Even more astounding to me was that this amazing woman thought that I, a very overwhelmed and incompetent feeling young mother and homemaker, was more capable of handling the children -- and I was! Obviously, this older and far wiser woman knew something I hadn't yet learned. She understood that we each have different abilities and each of those abilities are important and needed. Lacking this insight, I had been comparing myself to others and had missed seeing my own strengths. This moment forever changed how I viewed myself and others.
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