"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."

  During my senior year of high school my English teacher (who was amazing by the way) asked the class to write a paper on the challenges or monsters we fight in our lives. We had just finished reading the classic, "Beowulf" and she wanted us to parallel it to our lives somehow. My paper was titled, "The Death Demon". I unloaded all of my grief from the previous summer and the loss of my dad in that paper. I hated death! I had a really unhealthy fear of death. I was living in this black hole of grief that was all consuming. I went through the motions but up felt like down and down felt like up. I had a very strong testimony that helped me deal with some of my grief, however, the grief always came back and pounded on me like a drum. For years I wore a ring my dad had purchased for me and refused to take it off. In my mind if I took it off it was like saying I didn't need him anymore. I always bought the same mint chapstick that my dad used because it smelled like him. One day I had a panic attack because I couldn't remember what his laugh sounded like. How could I forget what his laugh sounded like? I searched everywhere for a video tape of him laughing and then cried uncontrollably as I watched it. All the while I still went to school, I still attended church, I hung out with friends and acted silly but inside I was dying. 
  The thing about grief is that everyone's grief is so unique and different. I am the youngest of nine kids. All of us siblings were drowning in grief but it was so very different for each of us even though we all were grieving the loss of the same man. Our grief was so deeply personal that we almost couldn't vocalize it to each other but yet there was an unspoken understanding between us. Our hearts spoke to each other when the words just couldn't come out. Everything we felt was often conveyed by one look into each other's eyes. 
  I write about grief today because it has recently come to my attention that a friend of mine is hurting from grief. The moment I realized what she has been silently enduring I retreated to my closet and sobbed for her. She lost someone truly special and I can only imagine what she goes through on a daily basis. Once you know that kind of pain you feel so much empathy anytime someone you know experiences it. It's been eleven years since my dad died and to this day every time someone I know and care about loses a loved one it pierces my heart with sadness for them. 
  A common phrase I heard when my dad died was ,"it's alright you will see him again, families are forever". So very true! Families ARE forever! However, this phrase never brought me comfort. I knew I would see him again but it wasn't alright because I wanted to see him right then, that very moment. I hold on dearly to this truth of eternal families. It is a lot of my motivation to live a good life. But when I'm really hurting and missing someone, when I'm aching because there is a hole in my heart what helps me most is the Atonement. Knowing that I wasn't alone in my pain was all I needed sometimes to make it through another day. When I was weak and depressed the Atonement is what made me strong. The only reason I was able to navigate my grief was because I turned it all over to Him in prayer. I cannot tell you how many thousands of prayers I have said pleading and begging for strength to understand. Asking for comfort when it seemed to be non existent. Without fail after a good prayer I would feel a little lighter. My grief was still very much there but I could make it through one more day, one more hour, until the next prayer. 
  I have had this grieving friend on my mind all day. How do I help her? What can I possibly do to make her load just a little lighter? Does she even realize how much I care and how much I feel for her? Today I opened up Jesus the Christ again and read about the last supper and Christ's betrayal. Multiple times the Savior comforted His disciples as they realized what was to come. As I read I thought about that last supper with a different perspective. Anyone who knows grief from losing a loved one can tell you that they replay every single final memory in their minds over and over again. Those memories become more precious than gold. Here is the Savior with His disciples and they know what is coming. They know that this is their last supper with Him. I can only imagine the palpable feeling of sadness in the air. Surely they were trying to soak up every detail and commit it to memory. The Savior sensed their sadness and comforted them.  

     "Observing the sorrowful state of the Eleven, the Master bade them be of good cheer, grounding their encouragement and hope on faith in Himself. “Let not your heart be troubled,” He said, “ye believe in God, believe also in me.” Then, as though drawing aside the veil between the earthly and the heavenly state and giving His faithful servants a glimpse of conditions beyond, He continued: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know."

    
     The tenderness conveyed in Christ's message to His disciples is absolutely heart wrenching. Can you imagine your loved one, whom you know is going to die, telling you that they are going to prepare a place for you in Heaven? I'd like to think that's what they are all doing. It brings tears to my eyes to think of loved ones preparing for me in Heaven. Anxiously waiting to be reunited with me again. That thought takes a little sting out of the separation for me. 
    I am not doing Jesus the Christ any justice. If you are grieving and mourning the loss of a loved one I highly recommend you read Chapter 33. As I read this chapter so many comforting thoughts came to me specifically in regards to the loss of a loved one. Again the Savior comforts His disciples by saying, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you". That same peace He gave to them is available to all of us! Sometimes its a process and there is a lot of pain to work through before we get that peace. I don't pretend to know what grief is like for this friend of mine or anyone else for that matter. What I do know is that after years of gut wrenching pain every time I thought about my dad, I have finally found that peace. I still miss him but I feel more sweetness when I think of him than anything now. I am acutely aware of his influence in my life even still. A few months ago I was really struggling. I was feeling so alone and Father's day was approaching. I didn't know what I was supposed to do with myself or my kids on Father's day. I didn't have a dad and their dad wasn't allowed to see them. I felt like we had no reason to celebrate. I retreated to my closet in prayer yet again (you'll hear me say that a lot) and poured out my soul to Heavenly Father. Still on my knees in prayer I was silent and just listened for a while. I distinctly heard my own father say, "I love you too Buggins". Buggins was my nickname from him. I KNEW and still KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that he was there. He is around so much more than I realize. I felt him as if I were physically hugging him. I have never felt his presence that strongly as I did in that moment, eleven years after losing him. I don't know why then. I don't know why I had to wait eleven years for that. Regardless, peace came all the same on God's timing. 
    To this friend and anyone else struggling with these issues I say to you: I'm so sorry you are enduring such a loss. I'm so sorry I can't take it from you! I am so sorry that you know the "death demon". There is no one blanket statement that will make it better. Trusting in your Savior and turning over your pain to Him will eventually heal you. You will be whole again! Changed forever, but whole! It takes time and more patience and faith then anyone wants to have but it will come. When it does, when you have that tender mercy of peace placed in your heart the bitterness of death will be gone. The sting will go away. You will always be sad but it will not cripple you. You will read those words that the Savior so compassionately said to His disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" as if He said them specifically for you. Until that peace comes don't stop praying for it! He will comfort you enough to get through the next hour, the next day, the next minute. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to not be okay. Losing a loved one is not easy! Gradually you'll heal. One day I stopped buying that chapstick. A couple months later I took off the ring. These things weren't my dad and they couldn't bring him back. It's how I coped but I realized that he was always written on my heart. I might forget some things. Time has a way of doing that to the best of us. What I will NEVER forget is the love he had for me and I for him. What I will NEVER forget is the compassion and love the Savior has for me because He atoned for my pain. He bore the unimaginable so that I will never have to be alone in my grief and I can live with my dad again.