Nearly six years ago a scholarship was born in a moment of great need. Then we decided to continue the tradition by creating a perpetual scholarship fund.

This year we had many fabulous applicants send in essays, and we asked a crack team of Mormon feminists to form a committee to choose the best applicant. We’d like to sincerely thank the committee: Tracy McKay, Fatimah Salleh, Marina Capella, Elise Boxer, and Lani Young.

Today we are proud to announce the sixth recipient of the Tracy McKay fMh Scholarship for Single Mormon Mothers! :

My name is Crystal and I’m a Single Mormon Mother.

I am 31 years old, a single mother, a law student and a feminist Mormon. Motherhood has been the pursuit and the joy of my life. I think I have wanted to be a mother from the moment I knew I was a person. As a child, I was smart, gifted and certainly wanted a career, but the beginning and end of my existence was in becoming and being a mother.

I think my childhood beliefs came not so much from a place of misogyny but what I believed was the perfect family. My parents marriage was a traumatic experience. My father was economically, emotionally, and physically abusive. My father was a monster—economically, emotionally, and physically abusive. I was nine years old when my mother finally left him. She left all five of her children with him. I was relieved she escaped; but inherited, with my siblings, much of the abuse our father had directed towards her. The idea of one day having my own healthy perfect family was how I coped. I became fixated on trying to create for myself what I lacked in my childhood. When I met the missionaries then –at 15 years old in a taxi—and they taught me the gospel of the eternal family, I was sold—hook, line and sinker. When I read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and Covenants, I was converted. I joined the church a few months later to the opposition and derision of everyone in my family and most of my friends. No one came to my baptism. But I knew the gospel was true. My journey as a Mormon, a mother, and a feminist is a long and difficult story. This essay can’t do it justice. In short, I had a vision for my life and the Lord knew a slightly different one.

I got my patriarchal blessing at 18 years old, which mostly counselled me to utilize my talents in the world through professional pursuits. What? What about the long counsel on families and children that my friends shared about? What about my self-prescribed destiny to be an abundant mother? Patriarchal blessings are beautiful and mine is too, but for the first two years I resented it. I met my ex-spouse one month later and we were married the following year. Soon after, he informed me he needed a break from practicing the gospel, but still believed that a wife should be completely submissive to her husband. In my young naivety and unfaithful desperation, I refused to see that he was like my father. My marriage quickly taught me though exactly the type of life I couldn’t live through or subject my own child to. In fact, we had our first big fight the night of our sealing (in his view, I should have then understood that he was in charge). We ended two years after, fulfilling parts of my patriarchal blessing.

For almost 10 years I have raised my son. I finished my first degree in psychology with a minor in social policy and worked in justice reform for almost 6 years. I rarely talk about the bad things in my marriage and prefer instead to focus on what I learnt and how it has transformed me. I try to give everyone the grace I so badly need. I have learnt to be strong in my womanhood, to not follow the herd; but instead to follow my own path and the measure of my own creation. I have used my talents to enrich the world, not just because I want to be able to take care of my son, but because I have a contribution to make to the world. I believe that while our talents are given to us to serve our families and to enrich others, they are also simply given to us. For each individual to grow their own character and enlarge their own spirit. That is not selfishness. For me, that is feminism—the ability for women to follow their own path without judgment.

It is not easy therefore to be a Mormon and a feminist as the standard has crafted an ideal path that does not fit every person’s reality or destiny; and then the culture often tries to push every woman onto that path. Those who diverge are often made to feel selfish or else are pitied. I have benefitted from individuals believing it is ok for me to pursue my profession because I am a single mother. It also saddens me to know that some believe these are the only kinds of circumstances acceptable for a woman to further her education and career. The counsel in my blessing has strengthened and held me through all that. “The knowledge that you gain is for your own good. You will feel a sense of accomplishment as you work to achieve difficult challenges.” My view of feminism is being fearless in trying to accomplish the goals you have for your life, whatever those might be in spite of what others believe are the restrictions and purpose of your gender.

In the book of Genesis, the Bible tells the story of the beginning of the new and everlasting covenant: The Lord promised Sarah and Abraham a son through whom the gospel covenants would be given on earth. For lack of faith or eagerness or just her own way of trying so desperately to accomplish this blessing, Sarah concocted a plan that her husband had to have that child with Hagar her servant. When Sarah finally had her own son, Hagar and her son became a threat to the promise. Hagar’s story is fairly left out in typical Bible story discussions. I haven’t heard many talks or lessons focusing on her, but her story has taught me a great deal about motherhood and mormonhood. The story of Hagar becoming a single mother is not a pretty one—it usually is not pretty for any of us. She was sent away into the desert to fend for herself and her child. After becoming overwhelmed by the awesome burden she was made to bear alone as a single mother, Genesis 21:16–19, states that:

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She went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow shot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink.

I was never Sarah (though I identify with her desires and her choice to force them into being). I was probably always Hagar—a convert trying to find a place in the mormon dream. I have wandered and strayed and it has not always been easy to be a member of the Church or to find my way back. When my marriage ended when I was six months pregnant, I shouldered the blamed from members for not having enough faith, not being longsuffering, not truly believing the gospel, not living my covenants, being high maintenance, being selfish, being unwise; even as I waited two more years to file for the divorce praying there was another way. I cannot say it’s excusable to pass these type of judgments since I never told them what happened. I don’t think I should have to make those disclosures to escape ostracism.

Like Hagar, I have felt the crushing anguish of not knowing how I will care for my child in a world that feels like a wilderness. I have had anxiety attacks about how I will pay for the next meal, our rent, his physical needs, his education, his spirituality, the fact that I just cannot give him every thing a father should and that I simply can’t force his father to. I have battled loneliness and despair. I don’t know a single-mother who hasn’t stressed about these things. But, I hold on to the words the Lord said to Hagar, that He heard her cry and that He would provide. He kept his word to Hagar and He has kept His word to me. When I prayed about my divorce, the Lord told me to do it for the sake of my son and to do it because that was not the life and purpose He had in store for me as a person, a wife and a mother. The Lord has always been by my side. I believe He loves me. I believe He knew that becoming a single mother would draw me closer to His purposes for me. I believe He cared about my life.

Like Hagar, I have also had experiences with the ecclesiastics and auxiliary of the church that could have left me feeling that this whole thing is not right, but my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Church fortifies me and I find refuge in them. More importantly though, I have a testimony of Christ and it is upon Him that my relationship to Mormonism has been founded. I am grateful for the difficult life I have had and I am beyond happy that I have been able to share it with my son. Wading through every negative and humbling experience, both unjustified and self-inflicted, has built my belief. Jesus made into a Mormon and by making me into a mother he also made into a feminist.