One of the most common uses of women’s blessings was to wash, anoint, and bless a woman’s body before childbirth. Women most commonly administered by laying on of hands to their children but were sometimes called to administer to those outside of their families. Women in the early days of the church often participated in healing as demonstrations of faith. It is a gift of the spirit, and like all gifts of the spirit, is bestowed upon whom He will, male and female. The gift to heal is a gift given, at the Lord’s discretion, to ALL followers of Christ and it doesn’t matter whether they are male or female. In my name they shall do many wonderful works In my name they shall cast out devils In my name they shall heal the sick…
And these signs shall follow them that believe. Therefore, as I said unto my apostles I say unto you again, that every soul who believeth on your words, and is baptized by water for the remission of sins, shall receive the Holy Ghost. He just reinforced my gratitude for the amazing power of the priesthood in my life.Īfter he was finished I then had the sisters turn their attention to the other type of healing, The Gift of Healing, and had them read D&C 84: 64-68 which says (emphasis added):
He did a wonderful job and really taught us many things that we didn’t know about how priesthood blessings are given. I started by focusing on Priesthood Administration and I invited a member of the Elder’s Quorum Presidency to come in and talk to us about priesthood blessings- how they are given, rules and procedures they follow, how it feels to give one, how they prepare for them, and some of his personal experiences giving blessings. I wanted to make it clear that these are two different types of administrations. I then told the women that my lesson would be on these two types of healing and we would talk about how they were different and how they were similar. I started my lesson by splitting the chalkboard in half and writing Priesthood Administration to the Sick on one side and The Gift of Healing on the other half. I shouldn’t have been nervous the spirit did a great job of teaching and the meeting was amazing. So I fasted and prayed that the Lord would be able to convey my lesson so that women would feel the spirit and understand the principles behind it. Yet as I pondered and prepared my lesson the spirit kept nudging me that the women in my ward really needed to understand this part of their heritage. I was worried someone would misunderstand me and think I was teaching false doctrine. It is a topic that most women have never heard of and if they have they either feel nervous or angry about it because they don’t understand it. I have to admit that I was nervous about talking about this part of Relief Society history. I realized that in my lesson about healing I should talk about the history of women giving blessings in the Church. Understanding the history of Relief Society strengthens the foundational identity and worth of faithful women. … the sisters of the Church should know and learn from the history of the Relief Society.
As I was preparing my lesson Sister Beck’s words kept coming to mind. There are several women in our church who are going through hard physical challenges and it seemed like this would be a good topic to address. This month it was my turn to teach (I am the first counselor in our presidency) and as I was praying about what the Lord wanted me to teach I felt strongly that I should teach on healing. Instead it is up to the prayerful discretion of the Relief Society Presidency to choose a message their sisters need to hear. On the first Sunday of the month there is not an assigned lesson topic for Relief Society. We hope you enjoy our take on giving and receiving spiritually this Christmas season.
#Whisperings lds series
This is the second in a series by our writers and guests regarding spiritual gifts.
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