I had a powerful experience with my daughter that I wanted to share in hopes that it would empower another mother to see within herself her divinity when she feels it the least. As an active LDS, I mean that differently than others may interpret: our divine DNA. The access to divine power we hold. Our divine potential.
I have a five year old daughter, Vivienne. Vivi, for short. She...she is a force to be reckoned with. Very early we recognized in her that she cannot be convinced to do anything she doesn't want to. It is a blessing that will serve her (and us) well in the future, but it sure makes her hard to parent. She is incredibly smart (dare I say gifted?); she is perceptive and asks deep questions.
"What is our Heavenly Mother's name?" she asked one day. I don't think they talk about Heavenly Mother in her Sunbeam class at church...
She is stubborn, yet sensitive. She is fierce, but defensive. She is empathetic, but can intentionally do harm. She is prone to angry outbursts, rarely is she demure. She is the sun and rarely moon. She is fire and rarely water. More on this later.
She is exhausting.
Vivi's daily emotional roller coaster is a lot for this mama to handle. Especially because I am her mother. As in: the qualities, behaviors, and attitudes that make her most difficult to parent she clearly gets from me. I see myself in her giant blue eyes. She can be manipulative (as any five year old can), so it is often hard to discern when to be patient and when to be...not. This is where our story begins.
Vivi had not been feeling well the past several days. Nothing major but a low-grade fever and very weird/scary nightmares that woke her up feeling ill. Several times a night she would get up whimpering (which annoys the crap out of me) and finally get into bed with me where she (we) would have a very restless sleep.
Last night, it started as it had the previous couple nights: whimpering of not feeling well and saying she'd had really scary dreams. But instead of getting frustrated (at this point I'm not sure if there's something really wrong or if she's trying to get attention), I took her hand and tucked her in her bed. I asked if we should say prayer and she said she wanted me to say it.
Suddenly, I felt the spirit strongly that she needed a blessing, but not from her father in the other room. She needed her mother to advocate for her, to invoke a blessing on her. I inwardly wondered if I should place my hands on her head, but that felt weird to think about, so I simply held her hand and touch my forehead to hers and began to utter my prayer.
It began as many prayers often do, but I felt compelled to continue on as she groaned in discomfort or fear of bad dreams. I prayed for the Spirit to be with her, to calm her mind. For angels to watch over, guard, and protect her. As I continued I felt...power. I wasn't just requesting hopefully...I felt it had power. I had power. It would be done.
As I prayed for the Savior to lay His hands upon my daughter that her body and mind may be calmed and healed (for all that the Savior lays his hands upon can be), she stopped groaning. She stopped whimpering. She lay perfectly still.
When I opened my eyes after "Amen," she was sound asleep. Her fingers still firmly gripping mine had to be gently pried away and yet she still slept. Her face was pretty and peaceful. The dark circles that had been under her eyes the last couple days seemed to disappear.
I dropped to my knees in the middle of my children's bedroom and thanked my God for that ability to communicate with Him, for what the ability to call upon His power to calm and heal my daughter enough to sleep, for the power of being a woman and mother who has been given the opportunity to find this divinity within and share it with her daughter, for a Savior who actively loves each of us every day.
I have said my fair share of prayers as a mother (of two VERY bad sleepers who are also very strong willed and high energy), but this wasn't a prayer of desperation...it felt like a powerful request of one having authority to ask for such a blessing as a mother charged with taking care of His children can and should have.
I shared this experience with my husband when I returned to our bedroom and then did what everyone else does in bed: flipped open Facebook on my smart phone. Just then my sister sent me this article: On Loving a Daughter Made of Fire. More than any parenting article, this described my Vivi. It described me. It described us. And the best way to be the mother of a "daughter made of fire."
"Introduce her to the women who braved the fire to build you: your grandmother lives in your tender hands, your mother in the grace of your smile, your sister in the gentle curve of your frame. We are all, in some small way, immortal. As she becomes you, she too will inherit parts of them. Show her they are watching over her when she sees herself for the first time in the mirror of your armour and realizes she was born a warrior baby.
"Remind her that anger is natural. When she comes to you, convulsing inside with the volcano she cannot contain, sift through the ashes with her to reveal generations of forgotten women who have never known escape. Let her see that the fire will not — no, cannot — scorch her. She was born of it, after all."
I have reflected recently on my grandmother and mother and the kind of women they are. I have reflected on the kind of woman I am. Yes, we are made of fire. It makes sense that my Vivi is also made of fire. Recalling my experience I'd felt just a few minutes before I read the article, I believe it is that fire that I felt within me and all around me as I held my daughter's hand and invoked the blessings of heaven to be upon her.
“We are not mere human beings,” tell her, “we are stars the sky tried to swallow whole; the stars whose shrieks of fury pierced the darkness like bullets: to this day, the sky bleeds light through phantom wounds like you and I.”
As an LDS, there could be many layers to this statement but at surface value, she truly is a "star whose shrieks of fury pierced the darkness..." This will describe her her whole life as it does me.
Her fire, her divine nature, her divine potential. My fire, my divine nature, my divine potential.
We are one.
We are powerful.
We are fire.
We will fight, we will burn. We will "help people with [our] flames," not destroy. Is that not the mission we have been given. Will not the earth be consumed in fire? Perhaps this is one kind of flame that will light up the earth.
Isaiah 64:2: "As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!"
- This was the first time I FELT that I do not need someone to grant me priesthood power; I have power within me. The power and fire of divine womanhood, eternal motherhood. A divine right by nature of who my Father is and the covenants I have made with Him.
WE are daughters made of fire.
Every woman, whether she is LDS Christian, or not, has that fire. That power. That divinity. Perhaps in the women/girls in my family that "volcanic" fire is more evident, but the fire of the divine, the flame to light the way, the power to call upon the unseen is within us all.
Every woman, whether she is LDS Christian, or not, has that fire. That power. That divinity. Perhaps in the women/girls in my family that "volcanic" fire is more evident, but the fire of the divine, the flame to light the way, the power to call upon the unseen is within us all.
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