Are we not ALL Mothers?

Several years ago I had the opportunity to meet one on one with Sister Julie Beck who, at the time, was the General RS president. As I walked into the small room with her, my emotions got the best of me and I was crying before we even started talking. She patiently waited for me to collect myself. I remember the way my voice sounded when I finally asked the question weighing on my heart and mind. “Why would Heavenly Father give me such an intensely strong desire to be a mother and then leave me unable to have children?” The tears immediately started up again. 

I think one of the requirements for a general authority is to perfect a soul searching gaze which makes the recipient of the gaze squirm just a little bit while under its influence. Sister Beck turned just such a gaze on me for what felt like an hour. In reality it was probably less than a minute. When she finally spoke I remember thinking, “this is it! This is where I’ll finally be told that all my prayers and fasting and blessings and righteousness and scripture study will pay off and all those meals I've taken to other moms and the baby showers and mother’s days I've cried through or avoided will be over. I’m finally going to get the hope to keep going.” Instead, she looked me right in the eyes and said, “Taryn, you need to grieve for the life YOU planned for yourself as a Mother.” And then she gave me a hug. “Um…. Excuse me?” I thought… Where was the “just keep trying” or the “don’t worry, it will happen”, “Just have faith?”, “go to the temple”, “try a family fast”, “get a priesthood blessing”? I would have taken any of those or countless others at that point. But “grieve for the life you had planned for yourself as a mother?” What sister Beck didn't know, or maybe she did through the spirit, is that just a few months earlier my older brother, who was also my best friend, had taken his own life and so I was INTIMATELY acquainted with what it meant to “grieve”.  I’ll admit I was angry when I went home and I actually wrote in my journal, “she is just a woman and she will ultimately direct me back to the Savior to receive revelation on my life.” I’m ashamed to admit, I didn't even write down her council.

Now seven and a half years later, I hope I’m more humble and willing to accept the answers in my life I don’t want with the grace and faith that is more becoming of a Daughter of God. Many times in fasting and prayer and following failed attempts to bring children to our home whether naturally or through adoption and other means, that counsel has whispered through my mind again: “Taryn, you need to grieve for the life you planned for yourself as a mother.” For the few minutes I have with you today, I’d like to share with you some of the truths the spirit has placed in my heart as I've followed this counsel and how it applies to the noble callings of Mother and Father.

In young women’s meetings each week the sisters stand and recite the young women’s theme. Part of that theme lists a set of values which we promise to strive to live by: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity and Virtue.  The theme goes on to declare that “WE BELIEVE as we come to accept and act upon these values, WE WILL BE PREPARED to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.”  The sisters also have another theme, the Relief Society Declaration, which I’m sad to say, is far less well known by our sisters.  Our declaration states: 

“We are beloved spirit daughters of God, and our lives have meaning, purpose, and direction. As a worldwide sisterhood, we are united in our devotion to Jesus Christ, our Savior and Exemplar. We are women of faith, virtue, vision, and charity who:

Increase our testimonies of Jesus Christ through prayer and scripture study.

Seek spiritual strength by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

Dedicate ourselves to strengthening marriages, families, and homes.

Find nobility in motherhood and joy in womanhood.

Delight in service and good works.

Love life and learning.

Stand for truth and righteousness.

Sustain the priesthood as the authority of God on earth.

Rejoice in the blessings of the temple, understand our divine destiny, and strive for exaltation.”

For years as a young woman I would stand and recite the young women’s theme with hope and anticipation for the day when I could begin strengthening MY home and family. And I waited and waited and waited. I found myself not wanting to go to relief society. I couldn't develop a testimony of that wonderful sisterhood because I believed I didn't belong there. I would sit and listen to lessons talk about motherhood and how to apply the gospel to raising our children and I felt broken and betrayed by Heavenly Father. I began looking at my body with disgust and dismay. “Why couldn't I do the one thing I was designed to do?” What was wrong with me? Did Heavenly Father not love me? Had I offended Him so greatly that He would no longer trust me enough to let me raise one of His children? I had a hard time even wanting to go to my relief society meetings. The clipboard would go around each Sunday with a page asking for sisters to write down their due dates so the presidency could keep track of everyone having babies. One year in just my ward alone, 30 babies were born in one month. We heard from church headquarters that it was a record for the church! Wonderful, I thought, I moved to the baby making capitol of the church. Where was my place in that? Where did a Daughter of God going through infertility fit in with a sisterhood or a church who believes the most noble calling a woman can receive is that of mother.

Luckily, Heavenly Father is patient and in His wisdom (and sense of humor) decided the best place for me to develop a testimony of His inspired program for His daughters was to put me in the stake relief society presidency! Oh, how I struggled… how could I stand up in these wards, in the baby making capitol of the church non the less, and teach these sisters anything. They would laugh me off the stand. They would look at me and think I couldn't possibly know anything about their lives, their struggles, their worries, their weariness. How could I bear testimony to them of the importance of relief society and motherhood when I was struggling so badly with my broken heart and my own testimony of relief society? And to top it off, I was younger or the same age as most of them. Never in my life had a felt so inadequate and lost and exposed. 

I threw myself into studying relief society. In my study I came back to these wonderful themes for Heavenly Father’s daughters. I realized that never in those themes does it say we are supposed to prepare to strengthen OUR homes or families. Just that we will be prepared to do so and that we should dedicate ourselves to strengthening those institutions. Never does it say that we should ONLY find nobility and joy in OUR motherhood or OUR womanhood, but that we should rejoice and find nobility in those callings.  My mind opened to the possibility that womanhood and motherhood was much more than my limited understanding could comprehend. 

Sister Patricia Holland taught:

“Could we consider this one possibility about our eternal female identity—our unity in our diversity? Eve was given the identity of “the mother of all living”—years, decades, perhaps centuries before she ever bore a child. It would appear that her motherhood preceded her maternity, just as surely as the perfection of the Garden preceded the struggles of mortality. I believe mother is one of those very carefully chosen words, one of those rich words—with meaning after meaning after meaning. We must not, at all costs, let that word divide us. I believe with all my heart that it is first and foremost a statement about our nature, not a head count of our children.”

A statement about our nature? That thought intrigued me, I wanted to learn more.  Sister Beck expounded on that idea saying, “Covenant-keeping women with mother hearts know that whether motherhood comes early or late; whether they are single, married, or left to carry the responsibility of parenthood alone—in holy temples they are ‘endowed with power from on high.’ Every girl and woman who makes and keeps sacred covenants can have a mother heart. There is no limit to what a woman with a mother heart can accomplish. Righteous women have changed the course of history and will continue to do so, and their influence will spread and grown exponentially throughout the eternities. How grateful I am to the Lord for trusting women with the divine mission of motherhood.”

I prayed about this idea, I wanted to know that my “mother heart” was not going to be wasted. I started to notice something as I did. One week sitting in sacrament meeting a little girl about 8 years old played the musical number on the piano. I watched with anticipation as she walked up to that large piano which seemed to swallow her up. She straightened out her music and lightly rested her fingers on the keys. She closed her eyes for a brief moment and took a deep breath. My breath seemed to stop as she began to play. When she finished, I felt this pride bursting from me for what she had accomplished. Tears streamed down my face. You can’t tell me what I felt wasn't the pride of a mother. I've cried with my younger siblings when they have struggled and rejoiced with my young women as they have graduated and gone on missions and been married. I've counseled them on chastity and the gospel and faith and hope. I've sat with them in the temple doing baptisms or when they have been sealed to their eternal companions. I've wept with them as they have struggled to conceive or lost babies.  I sat with my little sister in the hospital and coached and encouraged her through delivering her son who was almost full term, but for some unknown reason had passed away suddenly inside her. I encouraged her quietly and wept with her knowing that the joy and relief which should come after the struggle of delivery wouldn't come, instead, a more intense grief and sorrow would soon follow as she held her tiny baby in her arms and sent his spirit back to his Father in Heaven.

My heart shattered for her that day. You cannot tell me that I do not know what it feels like to be a mother. I may not have children I mother, but Mother, is part of my potential and identity. Sister Dew said, “And if the day comes when we are the only women on earth who find nobility and divinity in motherhood, so be it. For mother is the word that will define a righteous woman made perfect in the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, a woman who has qualified for eternal increase in posterity, wisdom, joy, and influence.”

I have finally learned how to grieve for the life I planned for myself as a mother. And I have learned that in so doing, I opened my life to receive what the Lord has planned for me as a mother. Mother and Father are identities we have. Just as we prepare to make and keep sacred covenants, so must we prepare to be mothers and fathers. And we must prepare just as much to be husbands and wives.  For those too are callings and identities we will be given for the eternities. Too many of us feel we don’t fit the “ideal” as a member of this church. But I have come to realize that none of us “fit the ideal”. We are in a fallen world.  The only person who ever lived on this earth who was “ideal” is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is why we follow His example, that is why we need His Atonement. For ALL of us have fallen short of perfection. All of us have fallen short of the “ideal”.  We can’t let the experience we face here shake us from what our Father in Heaven ultimately desires to give us. Even if I never bear children on earth, I will defend and strengthen marriage, families and homes. Each of us can do this, whether we marry quickly or never at all. Whether we have a home full of children, or our arms are left open to help in the way the Lord sees fit.

Having a child will not suddenly make you what a father or a mother IS in one day. The title will be there, but it will be an empty title if you do not know how to make it full. Getting married one day will not make you what a husband or a wife IS in one day. It is up to us to gain a testimony of these wonderful identities. We can be incredibly husbands and wives BEFORE we are ever married. We can be amazing mothers and father’s before we ever have children. We prepare for these blessings in the same way we prepare for baptism, or the covenants we make in the temple. We expect that someone entering the waters of baptism or entering the temple for their own endowment has prepared themselves. So, what are you doing to prepare yourself for the role of husband and wife and mother and father? And what are you doing to “grieve” for the life YOU planned for yourself in those roles? So that when our Father in Heaven comes to you with His plan, your arms and heart are open to receive Him?

If there was one thing I wish I could give you, it would be a certainty of who you are to your Father in Heaven.  You are beloved sons and daughters of God, and your lives have meaning, purpose and direction! It just may not be the meaning, purpose and direction you planned for yourself. Don’t ever let satan and his angels convince you that things which come from this fallen world are part of who you are. I try as hard as I can to never say “I AM infertile”. I AM is one of Christ’s names, and so I believe I should only use that statement about myself when speaking of things of an eternal nature. I am not infertile. I AM a daughter of God going through the experience of infertility.  And I believe and have faith that “all these things shall be for my experience and for my good.”

This Mother’s Day I rejoice in the divinity and nobility that is Motherhood and Fatherhood. I rejoice in those who have faced the ridicule of the world and defended their homes with their presence. I rejoice in those who have done the very best with what they have been given to exemplify what it is to be a mother.  I rejoice in the Mother heart which has been developed in my soul and I look forward to the day when I will be called Mother.

To all those who are in the process of grieving for the lives you had planned for yourself, I echo the words of Elder Holland. “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.”

I testify they come, In the name of the one who makes it all possible, Jesus Christ. Amen.

All my love, 

Taryn