February 24, 2025 • 22 mins
What if the very foundation of your beliefs is shaken by grief, leaving you feeling vulnerable and broken? Join me, Mama Bear Wendy, as we explore this question and embark on a heartfelt journey through loss, inspired by the teachings of Doctrine and Covenants 6:34-36. Through personal stories, including the profound experience of losing my husband, I share the struggle between fear and trust, and the challenge of finding peace amidst pain. Together, we'll reflect on the enduring truth that our worth remains constant, even when our ability to "do good" is diminished by the weight of grief.
In this episode, we transition from despair to hope, embracing faith and trust in the Savior's ever-present love. I'll share insights into the transformative power of repentance and the importance of viewing divine promises as realities in our current lives, not just distant hopes. By acknowledging the unwavering support of the Savior, we uncover a path toward healing and resilience. Through heartfelt prayers and personal reflections, find solace and strength in knowing that every promise holds true now. This episode is an invitation to seek additional support and guidance, reminding you that you are never alone on your grief journey.
If you would like more grief support please see my website at Mamabearwendy.com for upcoming grief groups and 1:1 opportunities.
Although your experience and path will be unique, there is hope ahead in this path and you are not alone. I can see your pain and we will walk this road together. Here is a big bear hug from Mama Bear Wendy, your fierce support in the journey of grief, until next time.
If you enjoy this podcast please consider donating to help us keep going.
"Wendy has a beautiful way of sitting in the deep end of the ocean with you. Her presence alone is healing. She meets you where you’re at and doesn’t push you any further than where you want to go. She gently nudges you into new places with new perspectives. She is highly intuitive, sensitive and compassionate. She brings a depth to the table you rarely see. Her experiences have given her an extraordinary level of understanding and a safe place to walk to as she is a safe harbor fill of strength and integrity. She is raw and real and beautifully vulnerable and she is exceptional at conveying the words that are hard to find. She is a rare one." Christi D.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mama Bear Wendy (00:03):
Hello friends, this is the Parables of Grief
podcast and this is your host,Mama Bear Wendy, I'm here to
share some love and light withyou on your journey through
grief and loss.
I hope, as our healing pathsconnect for the next few minutes
, we can walk together and findstrength for the road ahead.
One scientist suggests thatwhat the grieving need most is
to have others witness our painand help us not feel so alone.
(00:25):
I hope in our time together youwill find the companionship and
understanding that you need.
The intention of this podcastis to use parables of grief to
find the Savior and His promisedhealing in the daily and
commonplace, to see how we aretruly never alone and to find,
like the disciples on the roadto Emmaus, the Savior by our
side, even if we didn'trecognize him at first, because
(00:47):
he showed up in unexpected andcommon ways.
Also, there is much coming soonto help with your journey.
The Parables of Grief book willbe coming out by Christmas of
2025, and there areopportunities to join me in
online grief groups andone-on-one companion sessions.
Please check out my website atmomadbearwendycom for more
(01:07):
information.
Hello, my friends, today we aregoing to talk about the parable
of a savior and learning to fearnot.
This comes from the scripture,doctrine and Covenants 6, verses
(01:28):
34 through 36.
36 is actually the youth themefor this year, and look unto
Christ is the youth theme, andtoday I just wanted to talk
about the different ideas thatare in these verses.
The first idea, that isactually let me read you the
(01:49):
scripture first.
Therefore, if you're not littleflock, do good.
Let earth and hell combineagainst you, for if you are
built upon my rock, they cannotprevail.
Behold, I do not condemn you.
Go your ways and sin no more.
Perform with soberness the workwhich I have commanded you.
Look unto me in every thought.
(02:09):
Doubt not, fear not.
So the first thing that Inoticed as I was looking through
the scripture was in 34, itsays fear not, and then in 36,
it also says fear not.
So it's like a circle, right?
We're going to talk about howthe beginning he asks us not to
(02:29):
fear, and then at the end healso asks us not to fear.
So the first part as widows andwidowers and those that are
grieving or have had loss,grieving or have had loss one of
our natural tendencies, itseems, is to be afraid.
(02:50):
I know for myself that when myhusband died, lots of things
that I believed, lots of thingsthat I understood the world to
be, were challenged that day.
One of the things that Ibelieved was that God would
always protect us, and that daymy husband was killed.
(03:12):
We weren't protected in the waythat I thought.
So that created a lot of fearin me, and still does.
At times I have moments ofgreat fear, and so choosing not
to fear means choosing to trust.
(03:32):
I've also had lots of moments offear of the pain.
Grief is a pain I neverunderstood before and it is
pretty pervasive.
It's kind of all-encompassingat times and you can't really
run and you can't really hideand it just takes over the world
(03:54):
if you let it.
So fearing not the pain hasbecome a new way of life where,
when the pain comes, instead ofresisting and refusing and
running or getting busy orsleeping a lot these are not
(04:15):
solutions that work for the longterm.
Sometimes they are a reasonableway to take a break, perhaps,
but I also feel like not beingafraid of the pain has brought
me more peace.
As humans, we have been taughtfrom a very young age that if
(04:37):
you put your hand on the stoveand it burns you and it hurts.
Then you remove your hand andthat's what you try to do, with
pain always.
But the pain of loss isdifferent.
It doesn't let you escape, itdoesn't let you move away from
it, especially spouse loss,because of the pervasive nature
(05:02):
of your relationship.
The pervasive nature of yourrelationship, hopefully, with
your spouse and that you had alot of connection points
throughout your day, throughoutyour goals, like maybe in your
work.
All the ways that you connectedwith your spouse now have
points of pain.
So going to bed can be a sourceof pain because now you're
(05:26):
alone, and dinner can be asource of pain because now
you're alone, and perhaps thejobs that you divided and
conquered are now a source ofpain, like taking out the
garbage or when my car breaksdown.
Those are both points of painfor me.
Another point of fear in myexperience has been the idea of
(05:52):
what seems to be a loss.
So, like I said, when myhusband was killed, it seemed
that I wasn't protected that day, that I wasn't protected that
day, that he was not protectedthat day.
It seemed that our family wasirreparably broken.
It seemed that the world hadexploded and there was nothing
(06:17):
left.
Those were all feelings of fear, fear of the future, fear of
what would happen now.
Fear was my kind of constantcompanion, and choosing not to
fear meant I chose to give whatwas not mine to control back to
(06:39):
God and trust Him.
Trust Him that the plan, hisgreat plan of happiness, had not
broken that day.
Trust that God had notabandoned our family.
And trust that, even though itwas a horrific event and a
tragedy, that God did not meanhe was not available to help
(07:25):
anymore.
And yes, his help has changed,but he is still very present in
our family.
He is still very aware of usand helping us from his side.
So the second part of thescripture is do good, and I have
some questions for us about dogood.
(07:48):
So one of my go-to's throughoutmy life has been checklists,
and my value has been based inmy good works.
What I can accomplish andduring this time I have had to
(08:18):
accomplish has decreased, but myvalue to Heavenly Father has
not.
So, even though I have dayswhere I have to recover and
accomplish very little, thatdoes not decrease my value to
the Lord.
(08:38):
I have another question.
This question is in what wayscan your motives for doing good
works influence yourrelationship with Heavenly
Father.
And so we come back to thisquestion of motivation, right?
Am I doing good works to beseen?
Am I doing good works to beapproved?
(08:58):
Am I doing good works to havevalue?
In my life, I have spent a lotof time congratulating myself on
my accomplishments and perhapsgiving myself a grade for the
day depending on how much I wasable to accomplish, depending on
(09:24):
how much I was able toaccomplish, and that isn't
really what it is about.
Good works should be moremotivated by how Heavenly Father
feels about them and by thisfeeling of approval well done,
thou good and faithful servant,rather than this feeling of
self-pride and even arrogance,perhaps, of like I can do it
(09:45):
myself, I can do everything.
I have had to learn multipletimes throughout this last two
and a half years that I can't doeverything by myself, do
everything by myself, but thatthrough the strength of the
Savior and His ability to helpme, I can do what is required.
(10:11):
And that is a very differentway to come to this question of
doing good.
Do we do good to be seen and tobe approved of by others, or do
we do good to be approved of bythe Lord?
And then the last questionabout do good is what is one
thing you can do to follow theSavior's example in doing good
works?
And this brings us to a lot ofquestions about.
(10:33):
The Lord was very good atserving all, not just the
popular.
He was very good at dining withsinners and publicans and the
people that were outcast.
He was very good at seeing theone who was marginalized and on
(10:56):
the outskirts of the culture.
He was a light in people'slives.
He was a spokesperson for truth, and I guess how are we doing
with our good works to those whocannot repay us, to those who
(11:19):
need us the most but have noability to reciprocate in any
way?
So the next part is build uponmy rock, and in this time of
loss and grief, there has been alot of rebuilding.
I've had to start over and inmany cases, everything that I
(11:41):
had planned, my future plans,the things that we had built,
some of them, were destroyedthat day, and so there's been a
lot of rebuilding and I've hadto address multiple times where
my foundation is.
Where is it that when the topwas taken out, when the dust
(12:07):
settled for lack of a betterword what was left to me?
And it was a joy to find thatmany of the things Mike and I
had built together over our 32years of marriage were intact.
Our children are intact.
Our children are a support anda love.
(12:28):
They bring me great joy andeach one of them has come to my
rescue at times that I've neededthem.
When the dust settles from yourloss, what is left?
It reminds me of the song, theprimary song the Wise man Built
(12:49):
His House Upon the Rock andmakes me think of how often are
we looking, in our grief andloss, to the things that were
temporary anyway and lamentingthose things that are gone that
maybe weren't permanent to beginwith?
(13:10):
And how can your foundation bebuilt on Jesus Christ and that
rock, the bedrock of JesusChrist, that cannot fail you.
Another thought is how can youuse what is solid, what is left
after your loss, to bounceforward, to be resilient and to
(13:36):
come back to a place offruitfulness, to live up to the
measure of your creation?
Obviously, that you're stillhere means you still have work
to do, you still have value andpurpose and meaning.
And how can you take yourfoundation that did not break
(13:57):
when your spouse died?
How can you build on that again?
Yes, this is going to be a timeof rebuilding, and so how can
you build on the rock, the solidfoundation of Jesus Christ?
The next part is sin no more,and when I thought of this, I
(14:18):
thought about how I have had torepent, and by repent I mean
change and grow from a place offear and despair and go into a
place of hope and trust, andinstead of just falling down
(14:40):
into the pit which I didmultiple times and sometimes I
don't know that I could changethat immediately.
It was part of the grievingprocess, but I also think that
there was always a point where Ihad to choose, and the choice
was do I sit in this despair anddarkness and lack of hope or do
(15:07):
I choose to turn back to theSavior and beg Him for the
relief that I need, for the hopethat I need, for the solid
foundation that I need?
I had to turn and embrace,embrace the Savior, embrace the
hope, embrace all the thingsthat he had promised me and
(15:29):
accept that those were realitiesin my life now.
At first it felt like thepromises were all for eternity
and that eternity was not todayand not helpful in my suffering,
and I had to embrace the ideathat those promises were made
for me now, in my need, in myhour of need.
(15:53):
The promises of the Savior werenot just for some distant day
that I could not see, that Icould not be in right now, but
they were for me today, that theLord's promises were for me and
that I could trust Him morefully.
I could trust and count on Himto succor me, as we talked about
(16:16):
last week.
Me as we talked about last week, that he would run to me in my
hour of need, that he was on myleft hand and on my right hand
and he would buoy me up, andthat all those promises that
were made to me are for now, notjust some future day.
Perform with soberness the workis the next part of the
(16:39):
scripture and at a recentmeeting that I went to, she said
so what if soberness is theopposite of blind?
What if soberness is theopposite of asleep?
And what if soberness isaccepting fully reality?
(17:02):
So the opposite of denial whichis one of the great places that
I really enjoyed being my firstyear denial that he was
actually dead, denial that hewasn't coming home at five
o'clock in the evening when Iwas expecting him but soberness
is also acceptance of reality.
(17:23):
So if I am sober to my realityand part of my reality is this
idea that President Nelson talksabout of thinking celestial,
and if I think celestial rightnow, actually my husband's death
(17:45):
is a step in the progress inthe plan right.
Death was always part of theplan.
It wasn't a surprise to anybodythat we were mortal, except me.
I didn't expect anybody toactually die.
Logically I certainly knew that.
But that doesn't mean I wasprepared for the jolting and the
(18:09):
devastation and the feelings ofseparation that were just so
overwhelming.
President Nelson also talkedabout myopic and not being able
to see the distance, not beingable to see the future with
clarity.
In my loss there was a lot ofmyopic moments where my
(18:34):
immediate suffering was so greatthat the future seemed very
imaginary even.
And so being sober to me meansseeing the reality of now and
the past and the future, andthat they are all one actually
(19:05):
in my Savior, that that is notjust wishful thinking or a big
dream that we might hope for,but that there is reality there.
That brings us to the youththeme of look unto me and oh,
how we need to look unto theSavior, who is mighty to save us
.
How can you more fully turn tothe Savior in your sorrow and
your grief?
(19:25):
I found it very difficult in myhardest moments to get the
brainpower, the focus that Ineeded to do the scripture study
and the prayers that I was ableto do.
So often before my loss, myprayers, my scripture study
(19:46):
turned to very short burstsbecause that's all the focus
that I could muster and thosemoments were enough.
I testify that, even though myprayer was a heartfelt and
sorrowful please help.
I had no big words.
I had no flowery poeticsomething.
(20:07):
I had a very guttural soul,deep request for assistance.
That's all I could pull out,and it was enough.
And the Savior came out.
And it was enough.
And the Savior came.
Look unto the Savior in yoursorrow and your grief and he
will come.
Doubt not is back into thisdoubt and despair and fear right
(20:32):
.
The opposite of doubt is faithand trust, and placing your
faith and trust in the Lord isthe way to find the healing and
the solace and the peace thatyou so desperately need.
What if everything you've beenpromised, every covenant you've
made, every conference talkwhere the apostles end with an
(20:55):
apostolic blessing?
What if, in every place, thosepromises are true.
They are true for you right nowand they're not just a good
idea.
What if the Savior is real andhe's not just a good idea but
he is actually your brother wholoves you who gave his life for
you.
a good idea idea, but he isactually your brother, who loves
you, who gave his life for you,and you can rely on him
(21:18):
implicitly?
He is your sure foundation.
What if the promises you'vebeen made are not just for
eternity, not just for somefar-off unknown that is so far
away in your grief and sorrowand pain, but what if they are
for right now?
And the last question is whatif every word that has proceeded
(21:41):
from the mouth of the Lord canbe taken for 100% truth?
I testify that that is thetruth, that every word the Lord
says to us is true and that itis true right now.
It's not just some future date,but that right now you can rely
on Him, you can trust in Himand every time you turn, every
(22:05):
time you repent, every time youcome back to Him, he will be
there for you.
Thank you for joining me today.
If you would like more griefsupport, please see my website
at for my upcoming five pillarsof resilience group and
one-on-one opportunities.
Although your experience andpath will be unique, there is
(22:26):
hope ahead in this path, and youare not alone.
I can see your pain and we willwalk this road together.
Let's take a deep breathtogether and here is a big bear
hug from Mama Bear Wendy.
Until next time, thank you.
Hello friends, this is the Parables of Grief
podcast and this is your host,Mama Bear Wendy, I'm here to
share some love and light withyou on your journey through
grief and loss.
I hope, as our healing pathsconnect for the next few minutes
, we can walk together and findstrength for the road ahead.
One scientist suggests thatwhat the grieving need most is
to have others witness our painand help us not feel so alone.
(00:25):
I hope in our time together youwill find the companionship and
understanding that you need.
The intention of this podcastis to use parables of grief to
find the Savior and His promisedhealing in the daily and
commonplace, to see how we aretruly never alone and to find,
like the disciples on the roadto Emmaus, the Savior by our
side, even if we didn'trecognize him at first, because
(00:47):
he showed up in unexpected andcommon ways.
Also, there is much coming soonto help with your journey.
The Parables of Grief book willbe coming out by Christmas of
2025, and there areopportunities to join me in
online grief groups andone-on-one companion sessions.
Please check out my website atmomadbearwendycom for more
(01:07):
information.
Hello, my friends, today we aregoing to talk about the parable
of a savior and learning to fearnot.
This comes from the scripture,doctrine and Covenants 6, verses
(01:28):
34 through 36.
36 is actually the youth themefor this year, and look unto
Christ is the youth theme, andtoday I just wanted to talk
about the different ideas thatare in these verses.
The first idea, that isactually let me read you the
(01:49):
scripture first.
Therefore, if you're not littleflock, do good.
Let earth and hell combineagainst you, for if you are
built upon my rock, they cannotprevail.
Behold, I do not condemn you.
Go your ways and sin no more.
Perform with soberness the workwhich I have commanded you.
Look unto me in every thought.
(02:09):
Doubt not, fear not.
So the first thing that Inoticed as I was looking through
the scripture was in 34, itsays fear not, and then in 36,
it also says fear not.
So it's like a circle, right?
We're going to talk about howthe beginning he asks us not to
(02:29):
fear, and then at the end healso asks us not to fear.
So the first part as widows andwidowers and those that are
grieving or have had loss,grieving or have had loss one of
our natural tendencies, itseems, is to be afraid.
(02:50):
I know for myself that when myhusband died, lots of things
that I believed, lots of thingsthat I understood the world to
be, were challenged that day.
One of the things that Ibelieved was that God would
always protect us, and that daymy husband was killed.
(03:12):
We weren't protected in the waythat I thought.
So that created a lot of fearin me, and still does.
At times I have moments ofgreat fear, and so choosing not
to fear means choosing to trust.
(03:32):
I've also had lots of moments offear of the pain.
Grief is a pain I neverunderstood before and it is
pretty pervasive.
It's kind of all-encompassingat times and you can't really
run and you can't really hideand it just takes over the world
(03:54):
if you let it.
So fearing not the pain hasbecome a new way of life where,
when the pain comes, instead ofresisting and refusing and
running or getting busy orsleeping a lot these are not
(04:15):
solutions that work for the longterm.
Sometimes they are a reasonableway to take a break, perhaps,
but I also feel like not beingafraid of the pain has brought
me more peace.
As humans, we have been taughtfrom a very young age that if
(04:37):
you put your hand on the stoveand it burns you and it hurts.
Then you remove your hand andthat's what you try to do, with
pain always.
But the pain of loss isdifferent.
It doesn't let you escape, itdoesn't let you move away from
it, especially spouse loss,because of the pervasive nature
(05:02):
of your relationship.
The pervasive nature of yourrelationship, hopefully, with
your spouse and that you had alot of connection points
throughout your day, throughoutyour goals, like maybe in your
work.
All the ways that you connectedwith your spouse now have
points of pain.
So going to bed can be a sourceof pain because now you're
(05:26):
alone, and dinner can be asource of pain because now
you're alone, and perhaps thejobs that you divided and
conquered are now a source ofpain, like taking out the
garbage or when my car breaksdown.
Those are both points of painfor me.
Another point of fear in myexperience has been the idea of
(05:52):
what seems to be a loss.
So, like I said, when myhusband was killed, it seemed
that I wasn't protected that day, that I wasn't protected that
day, that he was not protectedthat day.
It seemed that our family wasirreparably broken.
It seemed that the world hadexploded and there was nothing
(06:17):
left.
Those were all feelings of fear, fear of the future, fear of
what would happen now.
Fear was my kind of constantcompanion, and choosing not to
fear meant I chose to give whatwas not mine to control back to
(06:39):
God and trust Him.
Trust Him that the plan, hisgreat plan of happiness, had not
broken that day.
Trust that God had notabandoned our family.
And trust that, even though itwas a horrific event and a
tragedy, that God did not meanhe was not available to help
(07:25):
anymore.
And yes, his help has changed,but he is still very present in
our family.
He is still very aware of usand helping us from his side.
So the second part of thescripture is do good, and I have
some questions for us about dogood.
(07:48):
So one of my go-to's throughoutmy life has been checklists,
and my value has been based inmy good works.
What I can accomplish andduring this time I have had to
(08:18):
accomplish has decreased, but myvalue to Heavenly Father has
not.
So, even though I have dayswhere I have to recover and
accomplish very little, thatdoes not decrease my value to
the Lord.
(08:38):
I have another question.
This question is in what wayscan your motives for doing good
works influence yourrelationship with Heavenly
Father.
And so we come back to thisquestion of motivation, right?
Am I doing good works to beseen?
Am I doing good works to beapproved?
(08:58):
Am I doing good works to havevalue?
In my life, I have spent a lotof time congratulating myself on
my accomplishments and perhapsgiving myself a grade for the
day depending on how much I wasable to accomplish, depending on
(09:24):
how much I was able toaccomplish, and that isn't
really what it is about.
Good works should be moremotivated by how Heavenly Father
feels about them and by thisfeeling of approval well done,
thou good and faithful servant,rather than this feeling of
self-pride and even arrogance,perhaps, of like I can do it
(09:45):
myself, I can do everything.
I have had to learn multipletimes throughout this last two
and a half years that I can't doeverything by myself, do
everything by myself, but thatthrough the strength of the
Savior and His ability to helpme, I can do what is required.
(10:11):
And that is a very differentway to come to this question of
doing good.
Do we do good to be seen and tobe approved of by others, or do
we do good to be approved of bythe Lord?
And then the last questionabout do good is what is one
thing you can do to follow theSavior's example in doing good
works?
And this brings us to a lot ofquestions about.
(10:33):
The Lord was very good atserving all, not just the
popular.
He was very good at dining withsinners and publicans and the
people that were outcast.
He was very good at seeing theone who was marginalized and on
(10:56):
the outskirts of the culture.
He was a light in people'slives.
He was a spokesperson for truth, and I guess how are we doing
with our good works to those whocannot repay us, to those who
(11:19):
need us the most but have noability to reciprocate in any
way?
So the next part is build uponmy rock, and in this time of
loss and grief, there has been alot of rebuilding.
I've had to start over and inmany cases, everything that I
(11:41):
had planned, my future plans,the things that we had built,
some of them, were destroyedthat day, and so there's been a
lot of rebuilding and I've hadto address multiple times where
my foundation is.
Where is it that when the topwas taken out, when the dust
(12:07):
settled for lack of a betterword what was left to me?
And it was a joy to find thatmany of the things Mike and I
had built together over our 32years of marriage were intact.
Our children are intact.
Our children are a support anda love.
(12:28):
They bring me great joy andeach one of them has come to my
rescue at times that I've neededthem.
When the dust settles from yourloss, what is left?
It reminds me of the song, theprimary song the Wise man Built
(12:49):
His House Upon the Rock andmakes me think of how often are
we looking, in our grief andloss, to the things that were
temporary anyway and lamentingthose things that are gone that
maybe weren't permanent to beginwith?
(13:10):
And how can your foundation bebuilt on Jesus Christ and that
rock, the bedrock of JesusChrist, that cannot fail you.
Another thought is how can youuse what is solid, what is left
after your loss, to bounceforward, to be resilient and to
(13:36):
come back to a place offruitfulness, to live up to the
measure of your creation?
Obviously, that you're stillhere means you still have work
to do, you still have value andpurpose and meaning.
And how can you take yourfoundation that did not break
(13:57):
when your spouse died?
How can you build on that again?
Yes, this is going to be a timeof rebuilding, and so how can
you build on the rock, the solidfoundation of Jesus Christ?
The next part is sin no more,and when I thought of this, I
(14:18):
thought about how I have had torepent, and by repent I mean
change and grow from a place offear and despair and go into a
place of hope and trust, andinstead of just falling down
(14:40):
into the pit which I didmultiple times and sometimes I
don't know that I could changethat immediately.
It was part of the grievingprocess, but I also think that
there was always a point where Ihad to choose, and the choice
was do I sit in this despair anddarkness and lack of hope or do
(15:07):
I choose to turn back to theSavior and beg Him for the
relief that I need, for the hopethat I need, for the solid
foundation that I need?
I had to turn and embrace,embrace the Savior, embrace the
hope, embrace all the thingsthat he had promised me and
(15:29):
accept that those were realitiesin my life now.
At first it felt like thepromises were all for eternity
and that eternity was not todayand not helpful in my suffering,
and I had to embrace the ideathat those promises were made
for me now, in my need, in myhour of need.
(15:53):
The promises of the Savior werenot just for some distant day
that I could not see, that Icould not be in right now, but
they were for me today, that theLord's promises were for me and
that I could trust Him morefully.
I could trust and count on Himto succor me, as we talked about
(16:16):
last week.
Me as we talked about last week, that he would run to me in my
hour of need, that he was on myleft hand and on my right hand
and he would buoy me up, andthat all those promises that
were made to me are for now, notjust some future day.
Perform with soberness the workis the next part of the
(16:39):
scripture and at a recentmeeting that I went to, she said
so what if soberness is theopposite of blind?
What if soberness is theopposite of asleep?
And what if soberness isaccepting fully reality?
(17:02):
So the opposite of denial whichis one of the great places that
I really enjoyed being my firstyear denial that he was
actually dead, denial that hewasn't coming home at five
o'clock in the evening when Iwas expecting him but soberness
is also acceptance of reality.
(17:23):
So if I am sober to my realityand part of my reality is this
idea that President Nelson talksabout of thinking celestial,
and if I think celestial rightnow, actually my husband's death
(17:45):
is a step in the progress inthe plan right.
Death was always part of theplan.
It wasn't a surprise to anybodythat we were mortal, except me.
I didn't expect anybody toactually die.
Logically I certainly knew that.
But that doesn't mean I wasprepared for the jolting and the
(18:09):
devastation and the feelings ofseparation that were just so
overwhelming.
President Nelson also talkedabout myopic and not being able
to see the distance, not beingable to see the future with
clarity.
In my loss there was a lot ofmyopic moments where my
(18:34):
immediate suffering was so greatthat the future seemed very
imaginary even.
And so being sober to me meansseeing the reality of now and
the past and the future, andthat they are all one actually
(19:05):
in my Savior, that that is notjust wishful thinking or a big
dream that we might hope for,but that there is reality there.
That brings us to the youththeme of look unto me and oh,
how we need to look unto theSavior, who is mighty to save us
.
How can you more fully turn tothe Savior in your sorrow and
your grief?
(19:25):
I found it very difficult in myhardest moments to get the
brainpower, the focus that Ineeded to do the scripture study
and the prayers that I was ableto do.
So often before my loss, myprayers, my scripture study
(19:46):
turned to very short burstsbecause that's all the focus
that I could muster and thosemoments were enough.
I testify that, even though myprayer was a heartfelt and
sorrowful please help.
I had no big words.
I had no flowery poeticsomething.
(20:07):
I had a very guttural soul,deep request for assistance.
That's all I could pull out,and it was enough.
And the Savior came out.
And it was enough.
And the Savior came.
Look unto the Savior in yoursorrow and your grief and he
will come.
Doubt not is back into thisdoubt and despair and fear right
(20:32):
.
The opposite of doubt is faithand trust, and placing your
faith and trust in the Lord isthe way to find the healing and
the solace and the peace thatyou so desperately need.
What if everything you've beenpromised, every covenant you've
made, every conference talkwhere the apostles end with an
(20:55):
apostolic blessing?
What if, in every place, thosepromises are true.
They are true for you right nowand they're not just a good
idea.
What if the Savior is real andhe's not just a good idea but
he is actually your brother wholoves you who gave his life for
you.
a good idea idea, but he isactually your brother, who loves
you, who gave his life for you,and you can rely on him
(21:18):
implicitly?
He is your sure foundation.
What if the promises you'vebeen made are not just for
eternity, not just for somefar-off unknown that is so far
away in your grief and sorrowand pain, but what if they are
for right now?
And the last question is whatif every word that has proceeded
(21:41):
from the mouth of the Lord canbe taken for 100% truth?
I testify that that is thetruth, that every word the Lord
says to us is true and that itis true right now.
It's not just some future date,but that right now you can rely
on Him, you can trust in Himand every time you turn, every
(22:05):
time you repent, every time youcome back to Him, he will be
there for you.
Thank you for joining me today.
If you would like more griefsupport, please see my website
at for my upcoming five pillarsof resilience group and
one-on-one opportunities.
Although your experience andpath will be unique, there is
(22:26):
hope ahead in this path, and youare not alone.
I can see your pain and we willwalk this road together.
Let's take a deep breathtogether and here is a big bear
hug from Mama Bear Wendy.
Until next time, thank you.
Host
Mama Bear Wendy
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