Today it has been six months since I delivered Eli. This milestone seems different than the other ones. Six months since I walked into the hospital completely reliant on Heavenly Father, but still filled with uncertainty. Six months since I experienced the most intense and unbearable pain to bring Eli's body from mine. Six months since I heard the most simple and powerful blessing that my ears have ever heard. Six months since I felt his tiny body against mine. Six months since I watched him struggle to stay alive for nearly 5 hours. Six months since I felt a piece of heaven and its angels come down and share Eli's transition here and transition back. Six months since I felt as if time were nonexistent and peace was infused into every part of my soul. Six months since I witnessed my son, that I had just barely met, make a beautiful and sacred transition we call death. Six months since I cared for a mortal tabernacle that no longer held a noble spirit. Six months since I was physically separated from the child I cared for so completely for the previous nine months. Six months since I walked out of the hospital empty handed.
A lot happened on that day. A lot has happened since, but sometimes it feels like nothing has happened....
I'm not sure how I feel today. I feel somber and grateful. I feel pain. I feel transformed. I'm not sure into what, but I'm not the same. I feel God close. I feel His presence and His patience. I feel His steadiness and His strength. I feel trust amid the misty, thorny path.
In a talk by Jeffrey R Holland: Lessons From Liberty Jail, he talks about Joseph's Smith experience in the Liberty Jail. He talks about it being a "prison-temple." He says:
So in what sense could Liberty Jail be called a “temple,”
and what does such a title tell us about God’s love and teachings, including
where and when that love and those teachings are made manifest? In precisely
this sense: that you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive
experiences with the Lord in any situation you are in. Indeed, you
can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experiences with the Lord in
the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while
enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds
and opposition you have ever faced.
In one way or another, great or small, dramatic or
incidental, every one of us is going to spend a little time in Liberty
Jail—spiritually speaking. We will face things we do not want to face for
reasons that may not be our fault. Indeed, we may face difficult circumstances
for reasons that were absolutely right and proper, reasons that came because we
were trying to keep the commandments of the Lord. We may face persecution, we
may endure heartache and separation from loved ones, we may be hungry and cold
and forlorn.
I have very much felt this idea of a prison-temple during the last 10 months. I feel like God has instructed me and taught me many sacred truths about Himself and His love; about the spirit world, and especially about Eli....who he is, what his role has been, is, and will be in God's plan.
I hesitate to call our experiences the last 10 months a "trial." I hated when it was termed this way...."You are going through a trial." I had people express to me that they wished this had never happened to me. I don't feel that way. I don't wish Eli had never happened. In fact, I can't imagine my life without him. It's hard that I ever did. He has always been here, but I wasn't aware. Now I am. I don't wish for someone or something else. I never wanted anything else. But, it is a "trial" in the sense that I am separated from Eli. He is not the trial. The experiences we have had are not the trial. The temporary physical separation is the trial.
So, through this "trial" of impending separation, and then the physical separation that occurred when he died, I have been filled with light and understanding. But the opposite, the darkness, will always oppose that kind of enlightenment, so there has been a great deal of darkness too. There has been more, at times, than I thought I would be able to withstand. I wondered if I could withstand it.
I don't feel that Eli is "gone" despite our physical separation. Maybe that is why it doesn't feel simple. He didn't "come" and "go" like I thought he would. I didn't understand the connection that I already had with him. I am talking about before I conceived him. I just see things more clearly now. God has given me a different lens and I see the premortal life, mortal life and post mortal life moving in fluidity, where, before, each of those transitions was so choppy and separate.
I know that God's plan isn't easy, but I know it is best....for reasons I understand....and many I don't.
If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on
His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can
pass, let it pass,” then
little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you
wonder if there isn't an easier way, you should remember you are not the first
one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago
if there wasn't an easier way. (Missionary Work and the Atonement- Jeffrey R. Holland).
We miss Eli. We love Eli. But, most importantly, we still feel Eli.
