The Resurrection is Sure

Occasionally, my life experiences have taught me that the Spirit will teach and confirm truths to me before I need to use them. This is particularly true about the resurrection. Early one spring Sunday morning, when reading my scriptures alone as a newly married bride, I had a reassuring feeling come over me and I knew, without any doubt, that the resurrection is sure. This troubled me somewhat as I had no reason to need the knowledge at that time. I was young, my friends and family were healthy, and my only significant personal loss had been my maternal grandfather, Ariel Tucker Smith, some seven years before. He had passed through the veil after years of ill health associated with heart disease. It was a very sad and shocking experience to lose him, but time had mellowed the experience and comfort had come to my heart.

Why would such a testimony come at the least expected time? Well, I have come to understand that occasionally we are prepared before, long before we will need certain kinds of spiritual knowledge. That is how it is sometimes. Your testimony is strengthened before it is tested.

It was some seventeen years before that knowledge, sweet as it tasted to me at the time, would be greatly needed during a more critical time of my life.

It was February 1989 when my first cousin, Lucy, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. It was unexpected, troubling, and mind-boggling all at once. We had been close as cousins, being the same age. We both were young mothers with four sons, married and happy, looking forward to raising our children, increasing our education, and serving the Lord. Now she was gone.

Evan, my youngest son, became ill next. It was December 6, 1990 when the hidden affects of illness became apparent. He had leukemia and while we enjoyed his company for almost thirteen more months, eventually the veil thinned and he was gone. It was January 1992.

Even as my mother from afar came to comfort and console our family at that time, her own health was diminishing from a hidden and pervasive brain tumor. The tremors started near the time of Evan’s last birthday and continued until she lost the ability to walk, move her arms, and stay awake for any length of time. It was a silent, painless movement towards the grave, but still the veil beckoned. Mom died February 25, 1993.

Grandma Josephine Smith slipped away shortly thereafter. Whether it was because she had lost her oldest daughter, was yearning herself for a husband gone for 29 years, or because it was just time, she left us just a few months later in May 1993.

Oh, how much I needed the knowledge I had obtained so many years before. The resurrection is sure. The resurrection is sure. It changed each loved one’s passing just a bit, made is sweeter and less bitter. It made it possible to say goodbye more willingly and look forward to the next hello with anticipation.

It was my Grandmother Smith who had first taught me how to believe. All the years of separation from Grandpa and her voice in my ear and conversation to her children always talked of “when” she would be with Grandpa again. There was no “if” in her tone, just “when.”

With that sort of an example it was easy for me to follow the same pattern and teach our four remaining sons about the “when” of the resurrection after Evan’s departure. And so in our home, the language was the same. It was always “when” we would see Evan again.

And when our sons were in far off places on their missions, it seemed that in the most difficult times they were not alone and I came to understand that sometimes the stewardship of a brother is to comfort from the other side of the veil, with more power and capacity that ever could have been done from this side. And so “when” we see Evan again, it will partially be a time of expressing gratitude for his willingness to take a stewardship that has blessed our lives over and over again.

When my dad died in May 2004, it was heart rending. He had been ailing for some time, was 79 years old, and had received the nurturing of his many adult children in different ways. I helped with finances and errands once a week and somehow didn’t see that he was getting along in age and the veil was parting ever so slightly. Mom must have been waiting in joyful anticipation for it had been eleven years, a long time for Dad to be alone without his sweetheart. He never said much about it, but I knew that he knew she would be waiting for him. It was only a matter of time.

Aunt Rachel was the mother of Lucy, my cousin who died unexpectedly in 1989. She was to lose again when another daughter, Sally, died in May 2006 from cancer. It was she who taught me to “be cheerful” as I coped with another personal loss and watched her quietly accept God’s timing in taking her children to a better place. It was never about ungodly sorrow, only about acceptance for her.

In three short years, she would go on to lose her youngest brother, my Uncle Fred, and then only ten days later her own husband, Uncle Clint, both in May 2009. And still, the warmth of her heart provided eternal hope of reunion as she continued to urge “be cheerful.”

There have been others, too, that have left. My favorite visiting teacher, Sister Moulton, who taught me about beauty moving from my face to my heart as I aged. It was she that said, the last hours of her life, “Dying is hard work, Marie, such hard work.” When it was finished, I could see the relief on her countenance. She was done with one existence, only to be glad for the next.

Lindsay, was a young teenager in my world that left, too, gone with a tragic freeway accident. There were the baby girls of two neighborhood families, the twin premature grandsons of another cousin, and my home teacher, David Lay, who left suddenly in an industrial accident. It goes on and on, my need for the testimony that the resurrection is sure.

It is always sad, hurtful beyond belief that those I have come to love are invited to the next stage of their eternity. Oh, I can’t say that it will ever be easy, but I can say, with all my heart and soul, “The resurrection is sure.” My grandmother knew it, my father knew it, and my aunt knew it. And I, too, stand with them in sure spiritual knowledge.

I remember a woman asking me, after she learned that Evan had died, if I had known before that he was going to pass through the veil “too” early. I hadn’t known, but the fear in her eyes told me that she knew already that one of her little ones wouldn’t grow to adulthood and in that knowing she was frightened and yet somehow at peace. How can it be so?

I suppose it is because the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. He gives willingly and He will teach you and continue to teach me about His tender mercies. When we search, reach, and touch this eternal truth, we too, can know that the resurrection is sure. Sometimes we may come to know before we will need the knowledge. At other times, we will have to come to that place of peace afterwards. But always, yes always, we can know. The resurrection is sure!

©2010 Marie Calder Ricks/www.houseoforder.com