A Tool In the Hands of God

God truly does love each and every one of us. We are all literally His sons and daughters, but I think His daughters hold their own special place in His heart. We have no idea just how important and influential we are - influential enough to impact the world, but He does.

I have a daughter who had some major, life-altering, life-or-death struggles when she was younger, but with God's help and through the atonement of the Savior, she was able to get her life back on track. She was a severe cutter and those scars will always be there as a result of the choices she made in the past, as well as a reminder of how far she has come since then. She used to be ashamed of those scars, then one day the shame began to fade.
She was at work stocking shelves when she turned around and noticed a young girl standing a short distance away, staring at her. She looked to be maybe twelve or so. This unnerved my daughter a bit, but because of her appearance, she was used to it, so she continued her work. A few moments later she turned again to find the girl still watching her. By now there was a woman with her. The girl whispered something to the woman - my daughter assumed this was her mother - the woman nodded, and the girl timidly approached my daughter.
"Can I ask you something?" the girl finally said.
My daughter sighed. "Yeah."
The girl hesitated, then asked, "How did you stop?"
Her soft question broke my daughter's heart because she instantly realized the girl was a cutter and this was her quest for additional help and support. My daughter immediately stopped what she was doing, grabbed a stool and sat down with the girl, and they talked. The girl cried and opened up about her emotional struggles, and my daughter shared some of her own experiences and offered what advice she could. Then she shared the gospel with her.
The scars that once caused my daughter shame were used as a tool by God to do His work and bring hope to a soul that was lost.

I consider my oldest daughter a super woman. She is blessed to be a stay-at-home mom to five little ones, all of them six and under, including a set of twins! In a world where big families are mostly frowned upon and children are delayed for material possessions, she and her husband are faithfully fulfilling the measure of their creation. She gets the occasional looks when she takes all her children out in public and is subjected to the playfully snide comments every now and then, but she is also strong enough to let them roll right off her back, because she knows who she is, Whose daughter she is, and why she is here. Motherhood is important to her and apart from the gospel, her family is everything. She's very talented and participates in plays and does what she can to help others.
To the world, she may not have accomplished much, but her life is a tool in the hand of God to bring some of His choicest spirits into the world. She is raising them to be great men and women, and God will use them to soldier on through the coming times and be influences for good.

My youngest daughter recently went through the temple for herself and I had the privilege of being her escort. She had already been going to the temple weekly with her younger brother to do baptisms and she spent the last year preparing for this big day, and we were excited for her.
A week after making her temple covenants, she began to get the usual questions.
"Are you going to serve a mission?"
"No."
"Are you getting married?"
"No."
"Why did you decide to go?"
She decided to go for her. She had prepared and she was ready. In making such an important decision to make such sacred covenants, God used her as a tool to help other young women know the importance of  holding fast to the values they were taught, and the importance being prepared and worthy to enter His holy house for no other purpose but to worship and please Him.

Ladies, we are all tools in the hand of God, and with each passing day, I am more and more amazed at the

opportunities He places before us to do so much good in this world. Through us, He can do any and all things if we will only allow Him to. I frequently think back on my life and skim through the dark days, amazed that I am still here after the many destructive choices I made. But I'm also awed to see how much He had for me to do. He took that old lump of shapeless metal that was me and created a tool He could use. Sometimes this tool gets a little rusty and needs to be cleaned, but His Son takes care of that and puts me to use again, and hopefully, with the Savior's help, I will never wear out.
I pray that we can all be tools in the hand of the Master Craftsman and help Him in creating His marvelous work on this earth.