When Sheri Dew was a young college student, she recalled being “riddled with self doubt: I couldn’t shake the belief that I wasn’t smart enough, cute enough, clever enough, pretty much anything enough.”
“I grew up with more inferiority complex than you can imagine,” she told an audience at Brigham Young University for the annual Truman G. Madsen Lecture on Eternal Man, sponsored by BYU’s Wheatley Institute. “It’s been a real struggle for me.”
In her remarks exploring the “power of identity,” Dew, the executive vice president of Deseret Management Corporation and a former member of the Relief Society general presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ, emphasized that “few questions are more vital for every human soul to understand, because our identity or how we see ourselves affects everything.”
Identity influences “the way we behave, the way we see others and make choices,” she said. “It is central to well being, purpose, confidence and emotional stability. Identity affects our motivations, relationships and hopes.”
In her remarks, Dew spoke directly to others who may be grappling with similar questions about their true worth and identity, sharing experiences, truths and questions that might guide others to reassuring answers.
The impact of seeing ourselves truthfully
Dew described her own experiences working with the late Truman Madsen, a beloved Latter-day Saint scholar who, she said, “saw me as an eternal being, a daughter of God with infinite potential.” In his presence, she felt viewed as “nobility in training.”
It was reading Madsen’s words about eternal identity, Dew said, that “started to shatter the image I’d constructed of myself.” One passage especially penetrated her heart:
“You have come literally trailing clouds of glory. No amount of mortal abuse can quench the divine spark,” Madsen shared in a 1974 speech, “The Highest In Us.”
“If we caught hold of God’s living candle on that truth and went out into the world being true to that vision, we would not need to defend the cause of Christ,” Madsen continued — suggesting that people would then naturally ask, “where have you found such peace? How come you don’t get carried away with the world?’”
Trust what prophets say about you
“I believe that if the Lord were speaking to you directly tonight, the first thing he would make sure you understand is your true identity,” said Dew, quoting President Russell M. Nelson speaking to young adults in 2022. “Those are pretty strong words from a prophet — that the first thing, and by implication, most foundational truth the Lord would have his children understand, is who they are?”
Prophets, ancient and modern, “have preached the truth about who we are,” she noted, referencing the apostle Paul’s teaching to the Romans that “the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”
Dew repeated President Nelson’s encouragement that “no identifier should displace, replace or take priority” over a divine sense of identity as a child of God and disciple of Jesus Christ. She also cited the newly called prophet, President Dallin H. Oaks, as similarly teaching, “When we choose to define ourselves by some characteristic that is temporary or trivial in eternal terms, we de-emphasize what is most important about us, and we over emphasize what is relatively unimportant. This can lead us down the wrong path and hinder our eternal progress.”
“The clarity of these statements from two prophets of God is liberating,” she said, “in a world that has always been confused about identity.”
More magnificent than you can imagine
“We’re not just creations of our Heavenly Father. We are the literal offspring of heavenly parents,” Dew declared. “How many of the 8.1 billion people on Earth would make better decisions if they understood this?”
She then asked the audience more directly: “What difference does it make to you to know that you have Heavenly Parents whose divine DNA is your spiritual DNA?”
“Faith in God is crucial to understanding who we are,” Dew emphasized. “If we don’t believe in God or dismiss him as irrelevant, we lose any conceivable chance of understanding our own identity.”
Alongside the magnificence of God, she added, “we should acknowledge the splendor of our Heavenly Mother.”
“Now we understand little about her, and the reasons for a lack of clarity on this doctrinal point aren’t really yet clear. While I might wish that we understood more about her, I trust that our all knowing Heavenly Father has reasons for not yet choosing to reveal this core doctrine. I also trust that what awaits females on the other side of the veil is more magnificent than anything we can conceive.”
Christ shows us our own glorious potential
“What the Eternal Father wants for you is the fullness of your possibilities, and those possibilities are infinite,” Dew said, quoting Truman Madsen.
“Anything that separates us from Jesus Christ interrupts our ability to experience true joy,” Dew underscored. “What difference does it make to you to know who Jesus Christ is and what He has already done for you?”
A person may not always feel “spiritually courageous,” she acknowledged, “but that is who we are, and it’s who we’ve always been. Having a spiritual witness of this truth will change our lives.”
How does God feel about you?
“What difference does it make to you to know that your potential exceeds anything the world will ever tell you?” Dew asked as a final question.
Since it’s not always so easy to feel these truths for ourselves, she suggested something practical that had been helpful to her: “Get on your knees and ask Heavenly Father to talk to you about you. Ask him how he feels about you.”
Dew said when she started to get a feeling about how Heavenly Father felt about her, she began to understand that she could make a contribution.
That kind of confidence does not come from anything else, she said, citing President Russell M. Nelson’s final message to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Confidence in the Presence of God.”
“I still wrestle with plenty of insecurities,” Dew admitted. “But I’m not insecure about who I am in my Heavenly Father’s eyes, and that has made all the difference for me.”
But wait, is God really speaking to me?
Dew also recounted a time in her 20s when she had fasted and prayed, trying to make a major life decision. “I couldn’t figure out if I was making up answers in my head or if the Lord was talking to me.”
She spoke to an older friend about her ability to receive personal revelation. “Have you ever asked Heavenly Father to teach you what it feels like for you or sounds like to you when he’s talking to you?” her friend asked her.
Dew went on to describe how often she’s done that in her life since — again encouraging others to “get on your knees, and ask Heavenly Father if he’ll start tutoring you about how to tell when the spirit is trying to communicate with you.”
Relentlessly teach the truth about who we really are
Alongside the “glorious work of Jesus Christ,” Dew cited Madsen as teaching that the work of salvation also includes “the glorious work of the uncovering and recovering of your own latent divinity.”
Dew ended her remarks suggesting that this late BYU professor “relentlessly taught the truth about eternal man and eternal woman.”
“Can we do anything less? Should we not be relentless in helping everyone we care about understand who God is, who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and who we are?
Dew expressed hope that these truths about our divine parentage, nature and destiny “become embedded in our hearts.”
“May we catch a greater vision of what it means to be the sons and daughters of the supreme being of the universe and potentially joint heirs with Jesus Christ,” she said.
