How I Discovered My Purpose (and Yours)

By Alexis Tanner


I laid on the grass outside our town-home after a run one Saturday morning in the spring.  It was still a bit chilly and the grass was just starting to turn green. I looked up at the bright brisk sky and these questions flooded my mind: “Who am I? What am I doing? Am I worth anything?” I felt lost and unsure what my role was in this world. 

I recently had my 4th baby and I had 3 other children under the age of 6 waiting for me inside. I had always wanted to be a mother and was so grateful for my children, but I had this burning desire to do more. To be more. But it seemed that God was just asking me to have lots of kids really really fast (I had a 5th baby less than two years later). Surely my purpose was more than nursing babies, breaking up fights, potty training, laundry, and making meal after meal.  How could I serve others or learn and grow when I had so many little ones depending on me for everything? 

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had an understanding of my divine identity.  I knew I was a daughter of God, but I didn’t know my purpose, my place, my life’s mission. And I craved answers.  So I began praying. I prayed and listened and searched and little by little I started to receive an answer.

In a talk given by President Worthen at BYU at the beginning of the year, he quoted President Nelson, “When asked, ‘How can we help those struggling with [a personal challenge]?’ [President Russell M. Nelson] instructed, ‘Teach them their identity and their purpose.'” I was intrigued.  How do I know what my purpose is? I’ve been praying for years and nothing is coming!  

He continued to say this, “…our divine destiny is to become like our Heavenly Parents.”  That was it! A light bulb went on for me. Our purpose is to become like our Heavenly Parents.  We each have a different path to get there, our lives all look different, and we’ll have different things that we experience and are asked to do, but we are all responsible to know who we are and where we need to go.  We are children of Heavenly Parents and we are to return to them. We each have divine missions that are always changing as we change: as our children grow, when we move, when we get a new calling, when we start a new project, when we learn something new.  And although each person has a different path, they are all meant to lead us back to our Heavenly Parents.

I also discovered my purpose in the Relief Society Purpose Statement.  I love how simple and straightforward it is:

Relief Society helps prepare women for the blessings of eternal life as they:

It essentially says that as members of Relief Society, we are to strengthen ourselves, our homes and families, and those around us.

President Nelson also mentioned that this purpose “…may guide you in developing your own purpose statement for your own life.” I love that! I am a goal setter and having a purpose statement that I can follow to make sure my goals align with my own purpose statement helps me stay on track with what I want to do in this life and to stay on the path to be like our Heavenly Parents – our divine purpose.

Do the questions “Who am I? What am I doing? Am I worth anything?” still come to my mind? Absolutely! But now I am more sure of my purpose, and yours! And I am better able to meet the difficult and monotonous parts of motherhood as I remember my purpose. We are to strengthen ourselves, our families, and those around us so that we can all return to our Heavenly Parents.  Your mission is different than mine. Your trials, your blessings, your experiences, and what God is asking you to do is different than me. But we are united in our purpose.

“How vast is our purpose, how broad is our mission,

If we but fulfill it in spirit and deed.

Oh, naught but the Spirit’s divinest tuition

Can give us the wisdom to truly succeed.”

As Sisters in Zion by Janice Kapp Perry

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