Sharing Our Loss

Lonna Heuett, Utah, USA

Several years after our first son was born, my husband and I were trying—unsuccessfully—to have more children. After months, we were elated to discover that we were finally expecting, but soon our hopes were dashed when I miscarried.

Some time later, I found out that I was pregnant again. Apprehension clouded my hopes, but as the months passed without incident, my husband and I became increasingly optimistic. During this time, I was called into the ward’s Relief Society presidency. The Relief Society president, Kay, had a son who had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumor growing at the base of his brain. The prognosis was bleak, and doctors said that his life was drawing to an end.

While the following weeks brought sorrow to Kay and her family, the little life inside of me continued to grow. Excitement filled me at each doctor’s appointment when I heard my baby’s heartbeat. But then one morning that heartbeat wasn’t there. The umbilical cord had become securely wrapped around our baby’s neck, and he had died. My husband and I felt hollow with despair. I wondered why the Lord would have us undergo such a trial.

Kay listened and tried to comfort me, and then she suggested that we go to the temple as a Relief Society presidency. I hesitantly agreed.

Later, while I sat in the chapel of the Seattle Washington Temple, my heart began to open to a soft melody the organist played over and over again. I couldn’t determine what hymn it was but tried to distinguish a few phrases. The hymn’s melody repeated itself in my mind throughout the temple session. When I arrived home, I quickly went to my hymnbook. I located the hymn, and the words penetrated my soul. It was as if Heavenly Father knew my innermost thoughts and feelings:

Where can I turn for peace?

Where is my solace

When other sources cease to make me whole?

When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,

I draw myself apart,

Searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows,

Where, when I languish,

Where, in my need to know, where can I run?

Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?

Who, who can understand?

He, only One.

He answers privately,

Reaches my reaching

In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.

Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.

Constant he is and kind,

Love without end.

(“Where Can I Turn for Peace?” Hymns, no. 129.)

The Spirit’s comforting peace poured over me, and I knew that Heavenly Father loved me and understood my sorrow. He had not forsaken me, but in His wisdom had supported me throughout this challenge. Now, many years later, I still view that moment as a time when my testimony was strengthened because of those simple words.