God
One of the very hard things about my first miscarriage was that it felt like God had withdrawn himself from me. I wrote in my journal about one night when I cried, “but not over the baby. I cried for loneliness and confusion. I cried because I prayed for peace and it did not come. I cried because I could not feel confident that peace would ever come.”
But I knew, although I couldn’t feel him, God was still there. He was there in the hugs and help from all my friends and loved ones. In their fasting and praying for me at my darkest time. Like wagons circling around the vulnerable in a pioneer company, they were a guard wall between me and the darkness.
Once when I prayed I told God, “I don’t feel like I can trust you anymore.” And at that moment, I did feel his Spirit, assuring me that my Heavenly Father’s love and Jesus’ atonement were big enough to cover even my anger and mistrust. I had never really thought it was possible to express anger toward God in one’s prayers, but I did it then and no lightening came to strike me down. I was learning that the important thing was to keep talking to God even if I had only the most negative of emotions to express.
Over time, the Spirit crept back into my life. I went with my husband to the Cardston temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and felt comfort, and also the message, “You have made covenants with me, and you must keep your promises, no matter what your doubts and hurts may be.” Andrew gave me a blessing in December and told me the Lord was pleased with how I had endured my trials.
That fall, our prophet, Gordon B. Hinkley, had challenged the members of our church to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. I doggedly continued to read it through my miscarriage and its aftermath, but felt nothing of the joy and peace that usually accompanied that book. Until one night I reached 3 Nephi 22, and came to verses 8 and 10 (the same passage is found in Isaiah 54):
In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.
For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.
For some reason, those verses hit me like a tsunami. I could compare it in intensity to Joseph Smith’s experience with James 1:5. I knew God loved me. There was so much I didn’t understand, but I knew he loved me.
Just reading those verses was a remarkable spiritual experience for me, but God had more in store. A year later, I was grieving my third miscarriage, and feeling about as broken as I thought it was possible to be. I was sitting in a church meeting and my sadness was welling up. I thought, “I can make it through until the person who is speaking now finishes. Then I’ll slip out during the intermediate song and find a place to cry.” But then the choir stood up and began to sing Rob Gardner’s “My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee.” I sat transfixed as the choir sang:
For the mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed
And the valleys shall be lost beneath the sea.
Know my child
My kindness shall not depart from thee.
I stayed and listened and cried, and I knew. My questions were boundless, but I knew one thing. I knew he loved me.
