Dreams of (and for) my daughter

When my only daughter was not yet two years old, I had a vivid dream.  It was soon after the emergence of Ordain Women, and I was trying to sort out my feelings on female ordination.  I desperately wanted more inclusion for women and girls in authority and decision-making positions, but hadn’t yet made the jump to supporting ordination.  I worried about what my daughter would be taught if she never saw women as spiritual role models, and if she never got to fully participate in church ordinances.  In the middle of the wrestle, I dreamed that my daughter was standing in the chapel, a few pews ahead of me, with her arm bent at the elbow, waiting to return a sacrament tray to the front of the chapel at the end of the sacrament.  She was there with her peers, both boys and girls, participating in a ritual that is currently for boys only.

When I woke up, I felt a profound sense of peace.  I don’t usually think of my dreams as visions; I’ve had far too many wacky and/or terrifying dreams to read too much into them.  But this one felt more visionary.  It felt like God was telling me to stay the course, that changes were coming, and that my daughter would be included in church administration going forward.

When my daughter was three, she would reverently fold her arms and close her eyes during the Sacrament prayer.  But she would also softly – almost imperceptibly – repeat the words of the sacrament prayer as they were said every single week.  At first she would say each phrase after they were said, but by the time she was four, she could say them in unison with the priest offering the prayer.  She knew the sacrament prayers better than I ever have, and would occasionally start repeating them under her breath as she played with her dolls or ponies or even just as we drove to the grocery store.

My daughter is five now.  She no longer repeats the sacrament prayers (at least not aloud), but she is very focused and reverently waits for the sacrament to be passed to our family.  She never lets the tray pass down the pew without putting her hand on it, helping to pass it along.

Yesterday, as the sacrament was being passed, I looked over to see her standing straight up, with her arm bent at the elbow, perfectly mimicking the deacons who were standing in the chapel, waiting to return their trays to the front of the chapel.  I gasped just a little, because she looked like a miniature form of herself during that dream from years ago.

Now, as you can probably tell, my daughter is quite the mimic.  She engages in pretend play exponentially more than her brothers ever did.  She dances around the house and tells me that someday she’ll be a ballerina.  She draws rainbows on any spare scrap piece of paper, and gives them as gifts to people in our family and neighbors.  She regularly dresses up as a doctor and gives us all exams, which is adorable until you realize that the cat is covered in band-aids (apparently the cat was very sick).  Last week, an adult asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, and she said, “I’m going to be a doctor and an artist and a ballerina.  I’m going to do all three.  I’ll be very busy.”

I love watching her understand and experience the world this way.  I love that she truly believes that she can be all three things if she puts her mind to it.  But I worry for the day that she realizes that her expert studying in sacrament-passing isn’t enough to be qualified to pass it.  I worry about the day that she subtly understands why she can’t pass it, and it’s not because she’s not skilled enough or unwilling, but that she was just born out of it. I think of somebody telling her that girls can’t be artists, or that girls can’t be doctors, or that girls can’t be ballerinas, and I’m filled with a visceral anger at the arbitrary nature of those limits.  But with priesthood functions, I feel a combination of dread and passive defeat.  I want to believe that women and girls will be more included in the future.  I really, really, want to hope for that.  I want to believe that the brethren will heed Bonnie Oscarson’s impassioned plea to incorporate women and girls into church functions.  I just have learned to keep my optimism guarded, protecting myself from what feels like inevitable heartbreak and disappointment. But as I saw my daughter in that perfect pose yesterday, with her arm bent, I pleaded with God in my heart: please let that dream be not just a dream, but a prophecy.