The Glorious Resurrection

I had the privilege today to attend the funeral of a seven-year-old girl who is the daughter of our good friends. She had numerous health challenges during her life with a brain that wasn’t fully developed and a body that did not function properly. With ten surgeries, countless hospital stays, bones that would easily fracture, and frequent severe intestinal pain, it is a miracle that her life was prolonged as long as it was. The speakers at the funeral focused on her goodness and angelic nature, how though she never said a word the Spirit was always there with her. She was pure, and she endured her intense suffering with a fighting spirit for many years. As we wonder why she had to suffer, why she was born that why, and why she had to leave, perhaps we can take solace in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s words (and he knew something about losing children): “The Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again.”  Surely this young girl has returned home to her Savior and we are grateful that her physical suffering has ended.

               As I think about the terrible loss these faithful parents are facing, it helps put in perspective what is important in life. Though our lives get so filled with the little tasks and demands on us day by day, I am led to conclude this: What could possibly be more important than the resurrection? The resurrection of Jesus Christ and its implication for all us—that we will one day rise again from the grave with all our loved ones—trumps everything else in importance. What matters is that we focus on that event and the kind of being we will be in the resurrection. The Lord said, “They who are of a celestial spirit shall receive the same body which was a natural body; even ye shall receive your bodies, and your glory shall be that glory by which your bodies are quickened” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:28). What we want in that day is a celestial body, and to have that we must learn to develop a celestial spirit here. Nothing else will matter at that time than the kind of resurrection we have and the people who are there with us.

Perhaps it was the importance of the resurrection that caused the Savior to pull out the records of the Nephites and ask Nephi about one of Samuel’s prophecies: “Verily I say unto you, I commanded my servant Samuel, the Lamanite, that he should testify unto this people, that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints who should arise from the dead, and should appear unto many, and should minister unto them. And he said unto them: Was it not so?” When Nephi confirmed that it was indeed so, the Savior continued, “How be it that ye have not written this thing, that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them?” (3 Nephi 23:9-11). Perhaps why the Lord singled this particular event out as missing from the record was because it was a witness of the resurrection. If I understand it correctly, then there were many who rose from the dead—i.e. resurrected—shortly after the Savior was resurrected, and the Nephites apparently witnessed this. So perhaps the Savior was saying in essence, “This is a witness of that which is most important—that all will again rise from the dead—it must be written!” As we get bogged down in the stresses and challenges of life, we should not lose focus on the eternal promise of the resurrection and all that can mean for our family. That is surely what this good family will focus on as they look forward to the day their little girl will be with them again with a resurrected, glorified body.