Grief and Loss

Today I read this great article about the honest grief that comes when a woman miscarries.  It was well spoken and so very true. Click HERE for the article.

As I read over this article, my mind was sympathetic and ached for those I know who have lost children in this manner.  But deeper within me there was a different grief that was not mentioned in the article. It was my own grief of never having the opportunity to lose a child this way. There is no physical evidence of loss. No baby to name, no baby to remember. Just a lot of broken hopes and dreams. I wept, remembering my own loss, my own grief.

There is loss in this world of all different types. One type of grief is not more valid than another. We all have need of compassion. We all have need of the loving, tender, healing touch of the Savior.



May I be one of those that lift the hands that hang down and strengthen feeble knees as the Savior has done for me. (Hebrews 12:12, D&C 81:5)

Trusting the Lord

Trust is a very tricky thing.  We expect people to let us down.  It is disappointing. They lose our trust; but somehow, we move on, learn to forgive, and maybe, just maybe, the person can earn our trust once again.  But what happens when the being who is incapable of lying lets us down?

In my last blog post (found here), I talked about my brief history with infertility and adoption.  My Patriarchal Blessing promised I would be a mother in Zion and have a large posterity. But here I am in my 40's, childless. (Now before you all start writing me about how Patriarchal Blessings are eternal blessings and not just for the here and now; let me state very clearly, I KNOW.)  While I don't feel unfulfilled as mother, you know and I know, it is not the same.  I hold "my children" and know they are mine for a short fleeting moment.  It is not the same as holding your child and knowing they are yours for the eternities; connected legally, physically, and sealed to you for the eternities.  I love who I am as a mother. I have a different connection with "my kids" than their mothers, I see things their mothers can't see, and I nurture them in ways they cannot.  Please don't read this post as some whiny, 'poor me' post.  It is not. OK? Side bar over.

So I have been promised this blessing of children, and yet my life is here where it is with promises so far into the future. I cannot see them.  The being who cannot lie, lied. Or at least on some level that is how I took it.  I don't even think that I had consciously realized that I didn't trust the Lord.  I just didn't.  I figured I was on my own with this life.  I clearly had not worked out the way I thought the blessing had laid out my life, so what was there to trust?  Which is most interesting because as a youth and young adult, if I felt the Lord had directed me somewhere, I went with gusto, jumping into any situation with both feet.  So, now at 40, I had lost that trust and confidence in the direction the Lord commanded me.

It wasn't until several weeks ago that I even came to the realization that I didn't trust the Lord.  I was talking to one of my "sons" about what we should I should teach at the next young single adult meeting that Monday.  He eagerly announced that I should teach about trusting the Lord.  All of a sudden, my eyes filled with tears as I realized that anything I had to say about it wouldn't be truly from me.  I didn't know about this topic enough to give an effective lesson about it. I was in shock.  I suddenly realized the truth, I did NOT trust the Lord.  What do I do?

Christ wiped the mud from my eyes, healing my blindness.

After our conversation ended, I immediately went to my bedroom knelt in prayer asking for Heavenly Father's forgiveness and asked him to direct me in why I didn't trust Him.  How could I, a faithful daughter of God, not trust the Lord?  The Lord directed me to read my Patriarchal Blessing which I had not in probably a year. So I went to where I always kept it, but it wasn't there.  After a frantic search throughout my house, I found it about 2 feet away from where I usually have it. (Blessing in disguise, by bed-side table got a thorough cleaning.)  As I read it, every instance that spoke of motherhood would bring great emotion and it clicked, this is where my trust in the Lord took a wrong turn.  It was as if Christ had wiped the mud from my eyes restoring my sight.

Interestingly, through out this whole realization the Lord kept whispering to me, "Look at how faithful you have been even though you have not trusted me."  Boy is it a good thing the week before this, he taught me that faithful does not equal perfect as I wrote about here.  Otherwise I might have thought he was lying to me again.  It was an interesting thought that I have been faithful, but I didn't trust the Lord.  I wasn't sure how those two thing could really exist together, but there it was.  Somehow they did in me.  So here I am faithful daughter of God with a huge trust issue.  What now?

Remembering Alma's great lecture on faith (Alma 32), he tells the people that if they no more than desire to believe their faith will grow.  Well, I had a desire to trust him, and that seed could be planted and grow.  So I prayed to have the Lord help me plant that desire deep in my heart. I prayed that it would grow until it was a full strong oak of trust, never to be blown or bent by the winds of doubt again.

I wish I could tell you that my tree of trust looks like the one above, but sadly no.  It will take some time, but I can tell you that the seed of trust has begun to take root.  It looks more like the one below, but the seed and tree are in His hands, and so it will grow to the mighty strong oak of trust and complete devotion to His timing and His way.  There is hope, and with that hope their is great growth.

The Mother God Made Me

Ever since I can remember, I have had one goal for my life.  I wanted to have children.  I planned and prepared myself for it.  In high school when I my German teacher asked why I was taking Early Childhood Education instead of German 3, I responded that the most important job I would have is to be a good mother and I should prepare myself in every way to be a good mother.  In college while trying to pick a major, my first consideration was is this a career I can do from my home so I can be available for my children.  I have been an aunt since I was 4 and have 32 nieces and nephews. Children was always a part of the picture for me.

Me on the left with my oldest niece only 4 yrs and 3 days younger than me

When I was 14 I received my Patriarchal Blessing.  (For those of my readers who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a Patriarchal Blessing is a blessing from an ordained Patriarch of the church who is set a part to give specific prophetic blessing to members of the church.  These blessing are prophetic eternal blessings, council, and promises.  These blessings are recorded on the records of the church. For me it is the word of God for me and my specific journey here.) In several places my blessing talks of my children.  In one place even saying that I will have a large posterity.  Oh how I looked forward to that day.

Not all but most of my nieces and nephews

So what happened?  For one thing I didn't get married until I was 31.  As my twenties dwindled down, I wondered how this large posterity was going to come about.  I reminded myself that Abraham was told that his posterity was going to be numbered as the sands of the sea and he only had two sons late in his life.  So I waited patiently.

Aren't they cute?  I love them so.

Then I got married.  Finally!  We both wanted to have children right away.  It was difficult to really time it since my menstrual cycle wasn't really regular.  I never knew when I was ovulating.  So I went to my doctor to work it out with him, maybe he could figure out why my periods weren't regular and then he also sent my husband to the doctor to have test done.  Well, the problem wasn't just me, but both of us.  We went through a lot of options and after A LOT of prayer and A LOT of discussion, we decided foster-adoption was our best option.

About this time my husband gave me a priesthood blessing ensuring me that I would know my children when I met them.  To me this clearly meant adoption was the absolute way to go.  Until we met with brick wall after brick wall.  (I may share more of this story later as it included so many life lessons for Gavin and I, but as this post is already getting to be the length of the Bible, I will sum up.) A funny thing started happening around this time.  I would be talking to a friend and the Spirit would whisper, "This is your child."  I would teach a Sunday School Class and the whisper would continue, "These are your children."  Being with my nieces and nephews, "This is your child." This started to happen over and over again, but never to a child we were hoping to adopt, not to mention the many road blocks and brick walls we kept facing each time we tried. (Again, a another long story for another day.)

After several years and many nights ending in tears and sorrow, we got off the adoption roller coaster and started to cope with our loss.  This was so hard for me with many complex and deep feelings of failure and loss.

During this time we volunteered to house missionaries in our home.  These boys became my surrogate children.  Most of them I still keep in touch with and still love with all of my heart.   Their losses are my losses and their joys my joys.  One of them even moved back in with us after we were done housing the missionaries and he was done with his mission.

My husband and I were called to be the Young Single Adult Advisers for our ward (congregation for you non-LDS readers) and more surrogate children came into my life.  I seemed to find new purpose and a new definitions for mother and motherhood.

I slowly morphed not into a MOTHER, but not the mother I dreamed of being as a child or a mother as the world would define it, but the mother that God made me.  Eve was called Eve because she was Mother to ALL living. (Genesis 3:20)  Not just those beings who would be born from her womb, but ALL living.  The title mother is not predicated on anyone's ability to give birth or raise children, but the ability to nurture and love. I believe these are qualities Eve had in abundance.

My new goal?  "Loving Mother to all I meet."