You Do Not Have to Be Perfect to Be Wonderful!

You Do Not Have to Be Perfect to Be Wonderful!
A Mother's Day Thought

I gave a talk on Mother's Day two years ago. I think more women need to know that they are wonderful despite and sometimes even because of their imperfections and uniqueness.

Mothers in Zion
May 6, 2005
By: Amy K. Ambridge


This is a great opportunity to be able to speak with you on a day when we celebrate the mothers and women in our lives.

I feel it a privilege to speak with you about the role of mothers in Zion. I have felt greatly encouraged as I have read and researched about our divine roles. This is a particularly sweet time in my life. I want to thank my beautiful children. I love being their mother. I am so honored to have two beautiful daughters of God. They are mighty woman and they have mighty spirits. I am especially touched at this time because of my newborn son. He is the sweetest boy on earth and I love him dearly. I am sure all the mothers here feel the same about their children.

Many of you may feel less than excited about this day and all the glorious talk that ensues about mothers as you see only your lack and not your great glory. My mother said she always dreads Mother’s Day because it reminds her of all that she is not. I hope that will not be the case today for the mothers and sisters in this room. I hope you will realize how wonderful you truly are.

I recently attended a woman’s conference where, David A. Christensen said something I want to share with you today. This statement has had a profound impact on me. He said, “You do not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” I hope you will each say that to yourself right now, “I do not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” I hope you will continue to say that to yourself throughout this week. (Time Out for Women, Sacramento, CA, April 2005, David A. Christensen

You are wonderful. Each of you is unique, different from one another. Each of you has a divine purpose, like Esther, that only you can fill. Heavenly Father made you. He gave you your own distinct gifts and talents that make you unlike anyone else. Heavenly Father knows you are not perfect. Your family knows you are not perfect, but you do not have to be perfect to be wonderful. You are wonderful. Your family thinks you are wonderful. We celebrate you and your divine role.

If you are thinking of your weaknesses, please know that Heavenly Father does not see you for your weaknesses. I think of an example from the scriptures about someone we often see for his weakness and not his great strength. If I say, “Doubting” and then ask you to fill in a name, what name would you fill in? You would most likely say Thomas. “Doubting Thomas.” Be assured the Lord does not use that name when referring to his precious son. Do you think the Lord sees Thomas that way? In John chapter eleven we see a very different Thomas. Lazarus dies and Jesus is going back to Judea. His disciples say in verse eight, “Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? We see that the Savior is in great mortal danger if he returns to Judea. In verse eleven, “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Do you think the Lord sees Thomas only as doubting? Or do you think the Lord sees Thomas as brave and willing to lay down his life for him? We are the same way. We often label ourselves or see only our frailties; the Lord sees our heart and our great strength. The Lord does not see you as the woman with the unclean laundry piling up or as the woman who lost her temper last week. He sees you as a precious daughter on a road of discipleship. Yes you falter, yes you fall, but you get back up and continue on that arduous journey of discipleship. You are His and you are destined to return to him weaknesses and all. He knows you, He loves you, and He desires your return.

So what is our divine role as women and mothers in Zion? The women of the scriptures provide the perfect framework to answer this question.

We look first to the Mother of All Living, Eve, for example and direction from Heavenly Father about our divine role. She was introduced as a help meet (two words) for Adam not as a help mate or helpmeet as one word. The word help is translated from a Hebrew root meaning “to surround, to protect, and to aid” (New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 87) This we do for our husbands as we surround, protect, and aid them. This is also a wonderful expression of a woman’s role as mother. The adjective meet means, “equal to, suitable for, becoming, right, fit, worthy, sufficient, competent, well-placed, necessary, proper, fulfilling, satisfying.” Eve was a help and a meet to her husband and her children. (S. Michael Wilcox, “Daughters of God,” 1998, 7-17)


Eve’s name in Hebrew means “life-giver.” I love these words, life-giver. These words describe what we as woman do every day in so many ways. We give life literally and also figuratively. We give life to our friend’s, neighbors, families’, husband’s, and children’s dreams and hopes. We nurture, feed, strengthen, love, teach, sacrifice and give life to our families. The first woman on earth’s name is essentially the title of mother. What could be more fitting? (S. Michael Wilcox, “Daughters of God,” 1998, 7-17)

I think of so many of my dear friends who have not yet been able to give physical life to a child. These sisters labor so diligently giving life to all those around them. I also think of the young woman in our congregation who are not yet mothers in a physical sense and yet are still mothers and life givers by nature. In Sister Patricia Holland’s book, On Earth As It Is in Heaven, she gives added meaning to what it means to be a life giver.
“Eve was given the identity of ‘the mother of all living’—years, decades, perhaps centuries before she ever bore a child. It would appear that her motherhood preceded her maternity, just as surely as the perfection in the Garden preceded the struggles of mortality. I believe mother is one of those very carefully chosen words, one of those rich words, with meaning after meaning after meaning…I believe with all my heart that it is first and foremost a statement about our nature.” (Patricia Holland, On Earth As It Is in Heaven, 94)

Eve’s and our roles as life-givers are eternal and celestial. Satan tries to convince us that the temporal labor of the lone and dreary world is more important than the eternal labor of the celestial one. For me, the role of mother is my most sacred duty and the joy of my life. I often miss the corporate world with all its’ perks of travel, expense accounts, and recognition. It has been replaced with lots of travel to and from the elementary school and dance classes, lots of expenses but often not much in the account to pay them, and for recognition I often receive a bouquet of carefully picked dandelions. How priceless. I am overpaid in this job of motherhood. My cup runneth over with joy. As all mothers know, there is sorrow. I mostly sorrow for my own weaknesses and frailties. (When I am cleaning I worry that I am not spending enough time reading to the children, when I am playing and reading, I worry that I am not getting the house clean or the bills paid. These are small worries compared to the down on my knees pleadings when I feel I am failing in areas of parenting.)

It is my hope that in my moments of despair when I lay my weaknesses at the Father’s feet that He will take over. I hope that in these moments of a heart broken open in pleading and submission that then he can teach His children directly, through me, but with no resistance offered. It is our Father in Heaven’s greatest work and glory to bring about His children’s exaltation and so this too is our greatest work. Maybe in these moments of weakness that we all have we allow our Heavenly Father the opportunity to teach us and teach the children he has entrusted to us directly. So parents continue to pound on the doors of heaven, continue to plead, continue asking for the healing balm of the atonement for whatever may be troubling you or your children. It is in these moments that we are actually most effective as parents and as conduits of our Heavenly Father’s love. (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Because She Is a Mother,” Ensign, May 1997, 35)

I love the healing words of President Holland as he says to mothers, “You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master’s garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, ‘Daughter, be of good comfort; they faith hath made thee whole. And it will make your children whole as well.”

I love to think of myself as the woman fighting my way through the crowds to touch the hem of the master’s garment.

I am so grateful for the time preparing for this talk. It has been so comforting because I am one of those mothers that often find parenting the most difficult and unnatural process. I struggle to find patience, to have empathy, to be full of charity. When my children bicker, squabble, are petty when sharing, or act ungrateful it makes me crazy. I have to plead for strength in the midst of these challenges. I fail sometimes, but like you I dust off the dirt through the atonement and get back to the work of parenting and most importantly loving.


The message I hope to give is that I want you woman and men to know how wonderful you are. Our Heavenly Father loves us personally. He knows our names and hearts. He has a great work for each of us to do.

I want you to know that you are wonderful. You do not have to be perfect to be wonderful. I want you to feel of the Savior’s love for you.

Our great work is to love. Our children will forgive us of our weaknesses if we just continue to love them.

I admonish all of us to follow the commandments. It is the greatest tool we have on this earth.

I know that like Esther, you and I were born for such a time as this. Each of you has a special calling and work that only you can do.

To the women, we are mothers in Zion fighting a valiant fight against evil. We are to nurture, to be covenant making and covenant keeping woman, to love, to teach the commandments through word and deed, to fight for truth and righteousness. We are the gospel of Jesus Christ embodied. We are a living testament of the gospel.

Women are by nature mothers whether we have born a child yet or whether it will be in the eternities. Mother is a statement about our nature.

We have a celestial work that will last throughout the eternities. We are life-givers. Our work in the home is important and incalculable in its worth.

Brethren, we thank you for your praise and encouragement. I thank my husband for his undying acceptance and love for me with all my weaknesses. I thank him for his praise and for choosing not to point out my weaknesses when they are so blatant.

Ezra Taft Benson quoted some wise counsel from a sister, she said, “Keep praising the mothers in Zion who are trying so hard; and keep loving us and praying for us, for we believe in the counsel of and cherish the words of the Brethren.” (Ezra Taft Benson, “The Honored Place of Women,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, 104)

It was so wonderful to watch the video during Relief Society last week. Your husbands and families said beautiful things about each of you. Listen to them, they are right. You are wonderful.

In Conclusion:

President Holland admonishes mothers, “Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Because She Is a Mother,” Ensign, May 1997, 35)

I echo President Ezra Taft Bensons words as I look out on you beautiful sisters, “What choice spirits you are to be reserved as wives and mothers in Zion at this critical hour! You are members of the only true Church of Jesus Christ on earth, and through your faithfulness with your companion, you may be heirs to eternal life in the celestial kingdom. That is your assurance.”

I testify to you, dear sisters, the truthfulness and eternal nature of your honored place as women.

May God bless and crown each of you with joy and happiness in this life and throughout eternity.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” (Ezra Taft Benson, “The Honored Place of Women,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, 104)