Solicitous for Our Welfare

This past Easter Sister Reyna Aburto bore a powerful witness of the Savior’s resurrection. She told of the personal meaning of the resurrection for her as she recounted the experience of losing her brother at a young age: “Like you, in some way I can relate to the anguish felt by Mary Magdalene and her friends as they grieved the death of their Lord. When I was nine years old, I lost my older brother during a devastating earthquake. Because it happened unexpectedly, it took me a while to grasp the reality of what had occurred. I was heartbroken by sorrow, and I would ask myself, ‘What happened to my brother? Where is he? Where did he go? Will I ever see him again?’” She told of how after this she would imagine him knocking on their door: “I would open the door, he would be standing there, and he would tell me, ‘I am not dead. I am alive. I could not come to you, but now I will stay with you and never leave again.’ That imagining, almost a dream, helped me cope with the pain that I felt over losing him. The thought that he would be with me came to my mind over and over. Sometimes I would even stare at the door, hoping that he would knock and I would see him again.” Ultimately she found comfort and reassurance in the gospel of Jesus Christ and was able to bear this witness: “I had received a witness that my brother’s spirit is not dead; he is alive. He is still progressing in his eternal existence. I now know that ‘[my] brother shall rise again’ at that magnificent moment when, because of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection, we will all be resurrected.” The Holy Ghost can similarly witness to each of us that death is a separation of our spirit with our bodies—the spirit does not simply cease to exist but lives on in preparation for that glorious day of the resurrection.

                I have never gone through the experience of losing someone in my immediate family, but my oldest sister did pass away shortly after her birth about nine years before my own. I have often wondered what it will be like to meet her and get to know her. I have also taken comfort in knowing that she is there on the other side, aware of our family, and solicitous to our needs. Surely that is the case for each of us—we have countless ancestors and family members who have gone before us whose eyes are upon us and who are more concerned about our welfare than we are. President Joseph F. Smith said, “I believe we move and have our being in the presence of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings. We are not separate from them. . . . Therefore, I claim that we live in their presence, they see us, they are solicitous for our welfare, they love us now more than ever.” We certainly don’t know a lot about what happens in the spirit world, but the scriptures are clear that for the righteous they will be “received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow” (Alma 40:12). I don’t think that precludes their participation in our lives or even their worry about our struggles; even the three disciples who were promised that they would remain on the earth in a transfigured state were told by the Savior that they would still experience sorrow “for the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 28:9). We can trust that the hearts of the fathers are indeed turned towards us their children, and the comfort we can take in the death of our loved ones here is that they do live on and care for us more than ever.