“A Sacrament Meeting of Angels,” Liahona, December 2016
Latter-day Saint Voices
A Sacrament Meeting of Angels
A few days after Thanksgiving, my three-year-old son, Drew, started to get sick. He woke up every morning, ate breakfast, got dressed for the day and seemed fine, but as the day progressed, he became lethargic and wouldn’t eat.
This continued for several weeks. Finally, on Friday, December 18th, I carried Drew into the doctor’s office around 3:00 in the afternoon. Drew couldn’t stand or walk and his skin was ashen.
I looked at the doctor and said, “This is how he has been every afternoon and evening for the past three weeks.” The doctor took one look at Drew and immediately admitted him to the hospital. They ran tests but could not figure out what was wrong with him.
The next day, Drew was transferred to another hospital. That Sunday morning, I was feeling crestfallen. After two days of numerous tests from two different hospitals, no one knew what was wrong with my son. To top it all off, it was the Sunday before Christmas. My favorite sacrament meeting of the whole year is the Christmas program and I was going to miss all the beautiful songs and talks in our ward.
As my husband and I were walking with Drew toward the room in the hospital where a sacrament meeting was to be held, I was miserable. I approached the table where the programs were, picked one up, and was still walking forward and looking down when I bumped into someone.
I looked up and said, “I’m sorry,” but no one was there. As I looked into the room where sacrament was to be held, it looked like an auditorium. On the stage there were chairs for the speakers, a piano, and a table set for the sacrament with a few chairs behind it. The room was sparsely filled with sick children and their parents, many hooked up to their portable IVs.
As I scanned the room, I felt the presence of angels. We took our seat and tears flowed down my face as I felt God’s love for His children who were sick and suffering, stuck in a hospital with all manner of illnesses at the most wonderful time of the year.
It turned out to be the most beautiful sacrament meeting of my life.
The doctors never did find out what was wrong with Drew. He was given medicine to treat his symptoms and then released from the hospital the next day. He has had no repercussions since, but that Christmas sacrament meeting will stay with me forever.