“Here Am I, Send Me” | M. Russell Ballard | 2001

We cannot fulfill our mission as a Church without the inspired insight and support of women. They matter to the Lord, and their value is infinite.

This speech was given March 13, 2001.

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"First, may I commend President Bateman, his staff, and the faculty for the truly great things BYU is doing here on the campus and all around the world. You students are attending one of the greatest universities in the world. I hope you understand and know that. Further, I’d like to congratulate our basketball team.

I have chosen to speak to you today about something that is very close to my heart. I have been married to Sister Ballard, who is with me here on the stand, for 50 years this August. The greatest day in my life was the day I met Barbara Bowen. My greatest accomplishment was convincing her that I was the only true and living returned missionary among all of those that she was dating. It was a most important day when we were married in the Salt Lake Temple. We are the parents of two sons and five daughters. Perhaps being the father of our five daughters and now the grandfather of 22 granddaughters makes me an expert on the subject of women.

Initially I intended to speak to the women in this audience. But as I have considered the days that lie ahead, I believe this message is vital to both men and women. So I invite you men to pay strict attention. In future days your lives will be increasingly influenced by the women who will become your wives, your daughters, and your associates with whom you will be privileged to work and serve in the Church.

Let me set the stage by reading from a letter sent recently to Church headquarters. This woman wrote:

I have a wonderful husband and children, whom I love deeply. I love the Lord and His Church more than I can say. I know the Church is true! I realize I shouldn’t feel discouraged about who I am. Yet I have been going through an identity crisis most of my life. I have never dared utter these feelings out loud but have hidden them behind the huge, confident smile I wear to Church every week. For years I have doubted if I had any value beyond my roles as a wife and mother. I have feared that men are that they might have joy, but that women are that they might be overlooked. I long to feel that I, as a woman, matter to the Lord.

Today I would like to respond to the issue that underlies the concern of this faithful woman. Does the Lord respect women? Do women matter to the Lord? The answer is yes—a resounding yes!

Elder James E. Talmage stated that “the world’s greatest champion of woman and womanhood is Jesus the Christ” (Jesus the Christ [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1956], 475). I believe that. The first time the Lord acknowledged Himself to be the Christ, it was to a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He taught her about living water and proclaimed, simply, “I . . . am he” (John 4:26). And it was Martha to whom He proclaimed: “I am the resurrection, and the life. . . . And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25–26).

Then, during His greatest agony as He hung on the cross, the Savior reached out to one person—His mother—when in that terrible but glorious moment He asked John the Beloved to care for her as though she were his own (see John 19:26–27).

Of this you may be certain: The Lord especially loves righteous women—women who are not only faithful but filled with faith, women who are optimistic and cheerful because they know who they are and where they are going, women who are striving to live and serve as women of God.

There are those who suggest that males are favored of the Lord because they are ordained to hold the priesthood. Anyone who believes this does not understand the great plan of happiness. The premortal and mortal natures of men and women were specified by the Lord Jehovah Himself, and it is simply not within His character to diminish the roles and responsibilities of any of His children.

As President Joseph Fielding Smith explained, “The Lord offers to his daughters every spiritual gift and blessing that can be obtained by his sons” (in Conference Report, April 1970, 59; or “Magnifying Our Callings in the Priesthood,” Improvement Era, June 1970, 66). All of us, men and women alike, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and are entitled to personal revelation.

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