For Mothers of Young Children
After My Baby Passed Away, I Wondered If God’s Promises Were Real
Lehi had faith that God’s promises were already fulfilled. Could I have that same kind of faith after my daughter’s death?
As a fellow parent, my heart aches to wrap my arms around Sariah when her boys haven’t come home yet (see 1 Nephi 5). Her prayers must have been filled with faithful pleading as well as gut-wrenching anxiety. When she and Lehi converse about the situation, I can’t help but wonder if panic overtook her as she exclaimed, “My sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness” (1 Nephi 5:2).
I’ve been tempted in my own seasons of wilderness to think, “I imagined this adventure looking differently,” “I didn’t think the promised land would be so far away,” or “I feel like you overhyped this.” But Lehi, seeking to comfort Sariah, responds with these faith-filled words:
“I know that I am a visionary man; for if I had not seen the things of God in a vision I should not have known the goodness of God, …
“But behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice” (1 Nephi 5:4–5).
But how can that be? At this point, the promised land still lies far away, and yet this beloved prophet is talking as if he’s already there. Physically, his sandals are still walking in the dirt of the desert. But in his heart, because he has surrendered fully to the Savior, he’s arrived at the promised land. And nothing can take away the peace it’s brought him.
A Season of Wilderness
The past few months have felt like a season of wilderness in my home. While we weren’t commanded to flee or to obtain ancient scriptural records, I do feel like the Lord was asking us to stretch and trust Him a little more. What had already been a very difficult pregnancy later took a dramatic turn for the worse. After experiencing some concerning symptoms at just under 32 weeks, I went in to see my doctor.
When the nurses checked our daughter, no fetal movement or heart tones were detected. My heart shattered as I called my husband and then shattered again as I tried to explain to my five-year-old that the little sister she had been praying for and excitedly anticipating wouldn’t be coming home.
I didn’t have sons back in Jerusalem facing enemies, but I found myself in my own camp, saying, “This isn’t quite the vision I had in mind.” Like Sariah, I truly mourned (see 1 Nephi 5:1). And like so many before me—and I’m sure many after me—I found myself asking, “Are His promises real, or are they not?”
The Savior promises: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). If ever someone needed that promised peace, I did. I needed faith like Lehi: faith to declare a surety of God’s love and God’s plan, even when the beautiful, promised land lies far in the unseen distance.
Faith in a Promised Land
While the heartache from losing my daughter remains, the pain is eased through peace that comes for me, “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23). I have felt peace from dear friends and neighbors in their loving acts of service toward me and my family. I have felt peace when someone says, “I put your name on the temple prayer roll today.” I feel it on my knees when I open my heart to be taught by my loving Heavenly Father. I feel it when I see my three kids play and when they ask questions about their baby sister.
I still have a ways to go before I have Lehi-like faith to believe with certainty in the Lord’s promised blessings as though they have already been fulfilled. But because of my experience losing our daughter and the countless tender mercies that followed, I can stand in my camp in the middle of the wilderness and say, with my eyes fixed on the direction I need to go, “I have obtained my land of promise.” I know that one day, because of Jesus Christ, the reunion awaiting me and my family will be far sweeter than anything I could ever imagine.