lesson #1

I thought this especially appropriate to post today as this week has been filled with these truths...The light is always followed by something else.

When I was trying to prepare my thoughts for Eli's memorial I had a hard time narrowing down what to say.  I have learned so many things the last 5 months and wasn't sure what would be best to talk about.  I wanted to talk about him and what our experience was like during the 5 hours he was here.  I wanted to talk about the time we had with him after he passed away.  I wanted to talk about what God has taught me.  I felt very directed to say the things I did.  I felt like I had to be Eli's voice.  It wasn't the experience I would have envisioned if someone had told me a year ago that I would be doing a funeral for my child.  But, God had prepared me before he was born in so many ways to do this.  He had prepared me before we were pregnant with Eli.  I decided to share 5 lessons I learned from Eli.  I want to tell you what they are.  I learned a lot more than 5 things, but these were the 5 I felt I needed to talk about: 

lesson 1: Eli taught me that increased light is always accompanied by darkness, but light always wins in the end.

From the beginning of this experience I noticed a pattern. I have received a great deal of inspiration  and revelation during this journey. It started right when we had our first ultrasound of Eli on July 3rd. I could feel the adversary trying harder and harder to surround these experiences with darkness and deception. This isn't  what I want to focus in today, but I felt directed to mention this, at least briefly. About half way through July, I started to sense what was happening and it seemed to make sense somewhere inside me. Of course great light would be preceded or followed by darkness. The recognition of this pattern helped me understand it but didn't stop it or stop the effects of it. I read a talk in October by Jeffrey R. Holland that helped this concept be put into words. He said:

There is a lesson in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision which virtually every Latter-day Saint has had occasion to experience, or one day soon will. It is the plain and very sobering truth that before great moments, certainly before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Life has some of those moments for us, and occasionally they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our lives

Joseph Smith History 1:15-17. 

15:After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

 16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

 17 It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!

This pattern was evident as we tried to answer a lot of urgent questions along our way. Some of these questions are easy to understand. 

1. We needed to decide if I would continue to carry him even though we knew his probable outcome. This Wasn't hard to answer.

2. We had to decide what kind of delivery to do... Was a c-sec an option?

3. We had to decide if we would do any resuscitation measures after he was born

4. We had to decide exactly when to deliver him

Surprisingly... These were the easier questions for us to answer. God directed us and allowed us to have very sacred and personal experiences so we could feel confident in making these decisions. I felt so responsible at the beginning. I felt like of I made the "wrong" choice about something I would be controlling how long he lived or died. It was a tremendous burden. But, I was able to understand that I had to be a clean and pure vessel through which God could do His work. The more I internalized this truth The more I realized that I had no control over what happened. This was actually a relief to me. God told me several times along this journey that this He was in charge. I didn't have to feel like I was. I just had to play my part. I felt like I could do that.

But there were harder questions that came....questions that are too personal to share. Many times the adversary would try to plant false ideas in my head about my purpose in this. As these afflictions came...questions came with it.  These questions caused me to seek God in an urgent way. I needed peace and reassurance. Because these questions were so painful, the answers came in a powerful way. I ended up being so grateful for the questions because, without them, I never could have received the answers I did. I never could have known the truths God taught me... Because I wouldn't have cared. I thought about how God works in mysterious ways, his ways are higher than our ways, I felt like the adversary sparked most of these questions...which were rooted in my insecurities ...and God answered them in a way that couldn't be denied or dimmed. I always thought God would just make me "feel better..." when I struggled. Instead he taught me doctrinal truths that couldn't be forgotten or doubted later. Looking back on each of these experiences, has made me so grateful for the questions he allowed into my heart

So, Eli taught me that increased light is always accompanied by darkness, but light always wins in the end. Gods power is always more powerful than the adversary's...always.