Me Thinks

Yesterday my niece asked questions about the stillborn daughter whom my parents lost, and I was comparing their situation with our situation, when we delivered a stillborn baby girl. I have been thinking about that time in my life and two very important lessons I learned.

Lesson Number One--People who are trying to live the gospel have adversity too. When we lost our baby, Matthew was serving as Bishop. We were a young family, finances were tight, and Matthew was spending a lot of time away from home at work and at church meetings.  I was doing my best to cover responsibilities at home, nurture the children, and keep a positive attitude. The distressing pregnancy, labor and delivery made me emotional and genuinely perplexed.  Why, if we were trying so hard to be good, did our baby die? Two weeks after the delivery of our baby we attended an outdoor wedding of a family member who was, at the time, not fully engaged in the church. The wedding was lavish and care-free.  It seemed that things were going very well for this family member.  I believed in the law of the harvest, and yet the law was not playing out in a clear way, at least not at that time. Elder Christofferson taught, "Some misunderstand the promises of God to mean that obedience to Him yields specific outcomes on a fixed schedule." That was me. I was looking for blessings (right now, and in the way we wanted them!) for our obedience and efforts. It took me a while to process this lesson. I needed to continue to live as righteously as I could and wait upon the Lord. I needed to realize ALL of the ways that He was blessing our family, and we were being generously blessed. I needed to not look to the left or the right and compare my life with others, but keep focused on my life, and do what I knew I needed, and wanted, to do.

Lesson Number Two--Faith can sometimes bring about miracles and a change of circumstance, but at other times faith is accepting the Lord's will. Because of ultrasounds and other tests, we knew that our baby had an array of physical problems, including not having a brain, only a brain stem.  A sweet sister in the ward told me that if I had enough faith I could pray my baby a brain. I did pray, and I did exercise faith, knowing that God can do all things, including make a brain, but a brain did not suddenly appear in the baby's head, and the baby died shortly before she was delivered.  I carried the weight of this around for a very long time. Was my faith lacking? Did I not have enough faith to heal the baby? I learned (again, after much time) that God does not always step in and fix the situation in a miraculous way, though He most certainly could. Sometimes faith is required to accept the situation and press forward, humbly accepting God's will. I also learned that although He may not remove the situation, He softens it in ways that make it bearable, and then He walks along side you as you bear it. This is where my memories become very tender. I remember a very loving nurse that cried along with me during delivery. I was placed in a room down the hall so that I would not hear the cries of other newborn babies. I remember friends and family members who reached out in numerous ways to show love and sympathy. The situation was not taken away, but it was bearable.