On Sundays, usually about 45 minutes before our worship services for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints begin, my husband, two kids and I slowly walk the block or two to our church building. Our children are young, so once we are ready for church it’s typically better to get out and make our way to church, stopping to look at bugs, flowers or fallen leaves along the way.
Getting to Sacrament Meeting early gives us the opportunity to chat with members of our ward. We moved into this ward just over a year ago and we’re just barely feeling like we belong here — when the people in the pews become less like new people and more like our ward family.
Even though it’s only been a year, we already seem to have our “usual” spot we sit in. You know the feeling, right? Like when the Johnson family, who usually sits four rows from the back on the right side, is now sitting in the second row in the middle and it feels different?
We typically sit on the fourth pew in the middle: me, my husband, my energetic 4-year-old son and my wiggly 1-year-old daughter. You’d think we’d opt for the back row of the metal chairs with our noisy kids, but my husband and I find that if we are front and center, everyone’s behavior improves. (Feel free to ask those sitting around us if that’s actually the case.)
When I found out about the shooting at a Latter-day Saint meetinghouse in Michigan, I wasn’t sitting in that fourth-row pew. I was sitting down eating a cinnamon roll at a luncheon after a family baby blessing.
As a young mom with two young kids, the following few days consisted of trying to talk to my husband about what happened in vague terms — or even code — trying to keep the ears of my young kids as innocent as possible. The world is filled with enough sadness and hate without exposing my tender kids to that before absolutely necessary.
The days following the shooting, as I processed my emotions — shock, anger, sadness, confusion and more — I became ever more grateful that the Sunday following I would be remaining safely at home with my family listening to the two final sessions of the 195th Semiannual General Conference.
“Peacemaking requires courage and compromise,” Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said during the conference, “but does not require sacrifice of principle. Peacemaking is to lead with an open heart, not a closed mind. It is to approach one another with extended hands, not clenched fists.”
I had been in a constant state of clenched fists since that Sunday when I heard the news — and in the days since as I considered what those members went through.
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to be sitting in our usual pew listening to testimonies, prayers and hymns in this special space — which has become so comfortable that my kids feel like they can roll around on the floor, grab books from kids on the pews behind them or walk a couple rows back and sit on neighbors’ laps that have now become honorary grandparents — and have that space so cruelly interrupted with a crash and gunshots.
What if that happened here, I thought? I couldn’t comprehend that. Thinking of the mothers who would be frantically grabbing kids’ arms and running out of the place that was supposed to be safe and sacred. It’s happening more in the world — and it’s devastating and heartbreaking.
As I sat listening to the conference, I yearned for something that would give me the strength to walk to church again, open those doors, make our way to our same pew and sit down, hoping that we’d stay safe.
In his talk, Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles described meeting families who had experienced unthinkable trials like kidnapping and murder.
“These saints pressed forward with faith in Jesus Christ,” he said, “choosing not to let their afflictions become gaps in their faith or cause instability in their testimony of the gospel.”
I have not experienced such trials nor was I at that Michigan meetinghouse.
Growing up as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had read and heard so many stories of the early Latter-day Saints who endured much persecution for their beliefs. I had always viewed them with great awe and appreciation for their strength and commitment to their faith regardless of the storms that beat around them.
Thousands of miles away from Michigan, I was wondering how I would be able to walk into church again today (the first regular church schedule since the shooting happened), when Michigan Latter-day Saints were already reentering a church building — this time to listen to Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who visited them in the days following the shooting.
“I cannot begin to describe the pain and tension that was there with everyone in the room, some people terrified to even walk into the church, let alone the chapel,” said a member of the stake, Brandt Malone. “Once Elder Bednar spoke, waves of calmness washed over everyone.”
So, this morning, as my family and I gathered our church things and headed out the door, we said a quiet family prayer. Grateful for the opportunity to go to church, to practice our faith and to sit alongside our ward family — with Cheerios and books littering the carpeted floors — to open our hymnals and sing songs about Jesus.
Hopefully my kids won’t ever know the pain the early Latter-day Saints experienced as they were driven from their homes and persecuted for their faith. And hopefully they won’t experience the terror the Michigan saints experienced as they were forced to leave their sacred place of worship, fleeing a fire and raining bullets. But they may. That’s a hard reality for my mama heart to comprehend. But the best I can do is press forward and show them that my faith in Jesus Christ is what helps me do that.