Last week my daughter Allyson rediscovered a book that we have had for quite a while, “We are Going on a Bear Hunt,” Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, and written by Michael Rosen. This small family, a dad with four little kids and their dog set out on a fine, sunshine filled day, to find a bear. Their journey is fraught with obstacles; mud, a dark forrest, a bog, a storm, and all manner of difficulties. Over and over, they realize, accept and enjoy going through the trial. “We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to go through it.” “Splighy, splashy, splishy, splashy.”
This night, after a weekend celebrating my faith during General Conference, the evening hour beckons rest. We spent the afternoon listening to the apostles testifying and teaching, while on a Sunday drive on the Alpine Loop. My soul is filled to overflowing with love and gratitude to the Lord for his tender mercies, and his creative and colorful masterpiece of our world. The glorious autumn temperatures lure goldenrod from the fibers of the aspen trees. Great sparks of energy cry in triumph to a season filled with life, abundance and harvest, now long to lay down for a season, but not before a final trumpeting of testimony to the warmth and life of Jesus Christ.
Later tonight, I again peruse my Facebook feed before retiring to bed, it was my friend’s would be 37th birthday. Cancer took its toll. He fell in the battle of life to this deadly foe after pushing through with valor and great faith. He left behind a wife, and two beautiful girls. On this evening, after my heart is filled to bursting with the glories of God, I absorb a moment of pain as I read her sweet words, “I changed your FB pics because I miss your face and was tired of that gnome. We all miss you like crazy. I asked the kids what they wanted to write, if anything and [our girl] immediately called out, “I love cheese.” So there you go. She ‘s totally your kid. Happy Birthday. Miss you all the time, especially today.” A lump forms in my through, the kind that burns. He was a great guy, a good friend, and super brother to one of my besties. The pain I feel comes from a deeper feeling, one that stretches past my soul, and feels the loss of another. I imagine for a moment the pain of loss in my own life, if I were to loose my partner, my lover, my friend. I can only imagine her pain, their loss, the days numbered until they meet again and her eyes can behold his angelic visitations, and beckoning forward. Tears stream down my face, as I feel, in some minuscule way the sense of loss and grief, even two years now since his death. There is a newly posted photo of my friend from several years ago. This giant man, with auburn hair is enveloping, protecting and loving his sweet little girl in an embrace. You can see both of their faces, content in the moment, one that should have lasted longer, but was cut short. In heaven he knows, he sees, he connects, he protects. But in our mortal frames, we are weakened to the veil of heaven, and protected from eternity’s gaze, if only for a moment. We have to experience fully the absence of those we love.
“Why God, does thou forsake me?”
On the cross in agony, Jesus Christ, the perfect soul, without blemish or fault had to experience the depth of loneliness that comes from being departed from his father, if but only for a moment, that stretched into the omnipotence and depths of an infinite atonement.
“You can’t go over it, you can’t go under it. You have to go through it.”
Two weeks ago a sweet family in our ward gleefully anticipated the birth of their daughter, she would have been their third. On a morning walk with Jonny, we passed her. She pushed her three year old in a stroller, her belly hung over legs as happily walked down the hill towards our church building. We exchanged pleasant hellos, and I made a note to call her later on to schedule Relief Society dinners after her delivery. The baby was overdue, Monday was to be her birthday. Sunday night she died. The umbilical chord was wrapped around her little neck three times. What should have been a journey of fatigue, pain, and triumph, ended up being fraught with loss, heartache and despair. The sweet mother stands just over 5 feet tall. Her petit frame shelters her broken heart. At the viewing, they displayed photos of the baby – a hallowed and empty vessel for a life moved too swiftly from this mortal life, into the next. There displayed was the family’s generational blessing dress. Footprints. Handprints. Sweet baby we miss you, but don’t know you, and want you to be ours.
What can I do to help heal her broken heart? What words of comfort could I offer to console her in time of need?
It’s not about me…..
Casseroles cannot fill the void of a departed loved one, or temper the desire to know the mysteries of God, but they can fill the belly, and provide a means of service to those who seek to support and give to others. Questions of why, concerns and doubts fill the air.
“Be still, and know that I am God.”
“You can’t go over it, you can’t go under it. You have to go through it.”
By choosing Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness, part of our tutelage is to experience mortality here, on the fallen earth, with moments filled with obstacles, inequalities, challenges and more. Some of our trials are of our own doings, others are caused by the doings of people we surround ourselves with. Some challenges, and pains are simply here because of the requirement that we must pass the test of faithfulness.
- We can’t go over feeling the depths of sorrow and sadness after someone dies. We have to go through it.
- We cannot climb under the opportunity to live in courage, when we feel fear or doubt. We have to go through it.
- We cannot go over the call to pay tithes and offerings, or skip around the responsibility to do visiting teaching. We have to go through it.
- We cannot go over feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, especially if it is someone in our own community. We have to go through it.
- We cannot go around the pain we experience in great loss, especially the loss of a spouse due to death, or divorce, and we cannot go around the opportunity we have to support, sustain, and buoy up those in need. We have to go through it.
This earth life is a time to feel, and to do righteously, despite the worst possibilities. After enduring a season of the most desperate abuse, Joseph Smith plead from the floor of the Liberty Jail for peace, for help. Jesus Christ replied with some hard truths about suffering.
“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?“
In the heavens, equality is tempered through experience. I do not understand how the addition of great pain and conspiring enemies can equal greater good, but I know someone who does. Jesus Christ descended below all things, and he stand as a witness of oppositional triumph. In his name do I live, through his words I find peace, and in his life I find hope, despite life’s worst and most challenging circumstances.
