is there a place for heavenly mother in mormon theology?

S U N S T O N E
to large birth weight. I hated that nurse and the hospital negligent
enough to pay her. I hated my husband for saying, “These
things happen.” I hated myself for being naïve and not realizing
that such things as birth injuries even exist. I had to do
something. I reached for the phone and began calling attorneys.
DURING MY WEEK with Elena, she complied half-heartedly
with every test and task to which I set her. Still, rather
than focusing on her abilities, she seemed only to see her disabilities.
Her conversations with me often fell back onto her
struggle to forgive and her sense of alienation from God. I
hoped this woman of faith needed only the perspective of time
and the luxury of fulfilling the mourning process before she
could accept the difficulties inflicted upon her by a young man
who one day made a horrible mistake.
THE MATERNAL DESIRE to protect a child is always
strong, but for quite a while, I didn’t want to let my baby girl
out of my sight. One evening, I was holding her in the foyer of
the stake center and listening over the intercom system to a
former general Relief Society president speaking of the birth of
a grandchild. Immediately upon delivery, the president had realized
something was terribly wrong because of the way the
baby’s arm had hung limply. She had been injured during
birth, but through the faith of her family and the power of the
priesthood, the child regained full use of the arm.
As I listened, I clutched my sleeping daughter, her injured
arm pinned between our hearts. Upon the last “amen,” a
stream of women came through the doors, arms encircled me,
and near-strangers whispered words of support and comfort.
“This has nothing to do with a lack of faith,” they whispered
as they stroked my baby’s hair.
I wanted them all to go away. I wanted it all to go away. But
I said, “Thank you.”
As I lay my daughter in her crib that night and gazed upon
the unnatural way her right arm turned out, I trembled,
knowing this problem was not going away. This was something
we would live with—and overcome. I thought of Elena.
I thought of her child. I thought of her child growing up with
a mother consumed by resentment, anger, and hatred because
of a foolish mistake made by a boy who not only had never
wished her harm, but who also would probably have done
anything to turn back the clock and change his fateful decision.
In time, I began drawing parallels between my situation and
Elena’s. I imagined what it would be like for my daughter to be
raised by parents who, for who-knows-how-many-years,
spoke in hushed tones about lawyers and malpractice and justice
and settlements and what her life could have been. I imagined
myself delivering Family Home Evening lessons on love,
compassion, and forgiveness, then signing settlement documents
and awaiting a big check. I knew that the doctor and the
nurse who delivered her would never have harmed her intentionally.
I knew that if they could, they, too, would turn back
the clock, change the events, and present me a perfectly
healthy baby girl. Somewhere inside I knew they, too, had
prayed for her.
I stopped seeking a legal remedy. I forgave the medical staff.
I forgave myself. I forgave God.
OUR DAUGHTER KNOWS that we not only have faith
in our Heavenly Father and are willing to accept
when he deals a difficult hand, but she knows that we
have faith in her. She knows her parents have the ability to forgive
a stranger’s mistakes, and therefore she knows we will forgive
hers.
I still think often of Elena. Like her, I know Christ instructed
us to forgive, but I believe he did so in order that we
will heal ourselves from our own imperfections, be they physical,
emotional, or spiritual, and discover the real abilities of
our souls. None of us knows what awaits us over the next crest
in our life. We hope for a clear road, but it is our reaction to the
unpredicted hazards which defines us.
SWEAT, THE WORDS, THE
STONE, AND THE MEMORY
The architect has erected the monument once more,
circling above The Dalles on dry golden heights
of Columbia River wilderness, forgetting to cast
shadow lines for passing salmon, those fish
of repetitive time,
this second Stonehenge, puzzling it together
from history and from fairy tale, from the patterns
of travel, migration, a crudely drawn map,
away from hemlocked Cascades and highways
this granite crown for Mount Adams’ knees
just big enough for the man’s dreaming or to catch
hollowed sounds of roaring current before it slips
away into ocean,
and the wind will hold this, for a moment,
shaping the stones in cracks and cooling
the sweat from the man’s face; taking it,
the words, and the stone, and the memory
in a breath towards the bluing sunset,
lifting his weight for a moment
from the great gravity of earth
—BRANDY MCKENZIE
JULY 2004 PAGE 13