(Isa. 10:2; Acts 6:1–3; Tim. 5:3, 8; D&C 83:2–6; 136:8; James 1:27; D&C 104:15–18.)
The term widows is used 34 times in the scriptures. In 23 of these passages, the term refers to widows and the fatherless. I believe the Lord has a tender feeling toward widows and the fatherless, or orphans. He knows that they may have to rely more completely on Him than on others. Their prayers will be more personal and lasting, service to fellowmen more genuine, and faith greater… .
To you wonderful sisters who find yourselves as widows, please know that God loves you. You are the choice among the choice… . Dear sisters, your very lives, as an example of righteous living, continue to inspire younger family members to do better. You continue as teachers.
At some period in God’s timetable, you will join your eternal companion and serve together, forever, in the great work in the spirit world.
For you young widows with ever-increasing family responsibilities, know that God is aware of your needs and that He will provide. Continue to exercise faith and good works. Faithful family and Church members will assist. Be willing to receive assistance from others as necessary. Your children will know that you provide them with a double measure of love. It is my testimony that our Heavenly Father will abundantly compensate your family with eternal blessings because of the goodness of your hearts.
To the family and friends of widows, God knows of your service and He may judge your works by how well you assist the widow. President James E. Faust once shared with the General Authorities a wonderful story about how neighbors and friends in a small farming community in central Utah treated the widows. They each had so many hours or minutes to take water turns to irrigate their home gardens. They agreed that they could each take a little less water so that the widows of the neighborhood could have more water for their gardens.
I recently observed five elderly widows drive together to a Church meeting in a modest car. They entered the meeting together and sat down beside each other. They seemed to draw strength and protection from one another. I felt the goodness of their noble lives as I watched their tender association with one another in the twilight of their lives.
Brothers and sisters, the Lord loves widows. I know that the leaders of the Church are concerned about the welfare of the widows. We members should care for and assist the widows within our family, home, ward, and neighborhood. I urge you young people—members of the Primary, youth, and young adults–to take the opportunity to assist and draw strength from the widows in your community.
(Elder Earl C. Tingey, Ensign, May 2000, 76–78.)
We hear reports from time to time of older men and women who, in the sunset of their lives, are neglected by their families and their neighbors. Those who are both poor and old often suffer doubly… . Please don’t assume that such individuals will always make their needs known. Often those who need help most are the last to make it known.
The ones about whom I am particularly speaking are those who will suffer in silence because they are proud or because they do not know what to do. Surely sensitive home teachers, visiting teachers, quorum leaders, and bishops can be more effective in both ascertaining and responding to the needs of these individuals.
(Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982], 367–68.)
To be justified before God we must love one another … we must visit the fatherless and the widow in their affiction, … for such virtues flow from the great fountain of pure religion… . We can love our neighbor as ourselves, and be faithful in tribulation, knowing that the reward of such is greater in the kingdom of heaven. What a consolation! What a joy! Let me live the life of the righteous, and let my reward be like this!
(Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ, 2:229.)
Blessed of the Lord is Brother Whitney, even the Bishop of the Church of Latter-day Saints, … the time cometh that … he shall deal with a liberal hand to the poor and the needy, the sick and afflicted, the widow and the fatherless. And marvelously and miraculously shall the Lord his God provide for him, even that he shall be blessed with a fullness of the good things of this earth… . And it shall come to pass, that according to the measure that he meteth out with a liberal hand to the poor, so shall it be measured to him again by the hand of his God, even an hundred fold. Angels shall guard his house, and shall guard the lives of his posterity… . As a lion goeth forth among the lesser beasts, so shall the going forth of him be whom the Lord hath anointed to exalt the poor.
(Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ, 2:289.)
The rich cannot be saved without charity, giving to feed the poor.
(Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ, 4:608.)
The man who is hungry and destitute has as good a right to my food as any other person, and I should feel as happy in associating with him, if he had a good heart, as with those who have an abundance, or with the princes of the earth. They all are esteemed by me, not according to the wealth and position they hold, but according to the character they have… .
It is a disgrace to every man and woman that has sense enough to live, not to take care of their own relatives, their own poor.
(Discourses of Brigham Young, comp. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], 317–18.)
When we begin to think of those whom we would help as being useful for something instead of being objects of pity, we will then begin to plan ways by which the … thriftiness of widowhood and the youthful vigor of the able-bodied might be utilized toward the solving of their own problems and for the blessing of the lives of those less fortunate than they… .
The Prophet Joseph Smith declared: “It has always been a cardinal teaching with the Latter-day Saints that a religion that has not the power to save people temporally and make them prosperous and happy here cannot be depended upon to save them spiritually and exalt them in the life to come.” …
Said Brigham Young: “It is never any benefit to give out and out to man or woman, money, food, clothing or anything else, if they are able-bodied, and can work to earn what they need, when there is anything on earth for them to do… . To pursue a contrary course would ruin any community in the world and make them idlers. People trained in this way have no interest in working… . Teach this girl to do housework and that woman to sew and do other kinds of work … for the bone and sinew of men and women are the capital of the world” (Brigham Young, J. D., 11:297).
(Harold B. Lee, Decisions for Successful Living [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1973], 203–204.)
We urge you, particularly priesthood brethren and Relief Society sisters, to be sensitive to the needs of the poor, the sick, and the needy. We have a Christian responsibility to see that the widows and fatherless are assisted. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).
(Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988], 449.)