Encircled Eternally in the Arms of His Love

"But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love" (2 Nephi 1:15).

One year ago this week, late on Friday night, I rode home slowly from the hospital with my good friend, Shane.  I had just spent the previous hours cradling my sweet son, James’s body, in my arms.  As Laura and I entered the ER room, James looked so peaceful lying there on the hospital bed, as if he were sleeping.  He looked so peaceful.  I walked up to his bedside and lifted his body, draped in a white blanket, into my arms, and then sat down.   His body was still warm.  His head rested gently in the crook of my right arm and his long legs spilled over my left arm onto Laura’s lap.  I kissed his head over and over again and talked to him in soft, soothing tones.  Tears ran down my face.  My sweet son James was now with Jesus. 

An hour or two before, I raced in the ambulance to the hospital with sirens blaring.  “Please,” I prayed, “please let him live and be happy, healthy and normal.  Please let him come back to me.”  The ambulance driver had told me, as he entered the ambulance, that James was improving, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet.  I took hope.  If I had enough hope and faith, he would be OK.  Besides, these kinds of things don’t happen to me, do they? 

Moments before I kneeled next to his body with my feet dangling in the pool, placing my hands on his wet hair, and blessing by the power of the Priesthood to live.  Then began to desperately try to remember everything I had ever learned about CPR.  My mind was in commotion.   People shouted out instructions.  A neighbor-doctor-Bishop raced to the scene while others summoned 9-1-1.  Grace looked at me and wanted me to hold her.  “I need to help James.  Hug your brother, Spencer.”  Some sweet young women then took Spencer and Grace into the house and provided hours of comfort for them.  The Bishop-Doctor arrived and took over.  The paramedics arrived.  James was safe to be transported.  I called Laura and assured her that James had a heart rate and blood pressure and it looked like he would be OK.  She rushed to meet us at the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital I was panicked.  I wanted to go in and help, but how?  I needed Laura.  She called from the lobby and I pushed open the door to let her in.  We then waited in a room.  I pleaded and prayed over and over and over again “Please let him be OK.  Please let him be OK.”  We prayed together.  Laura told me that we just needed to have faith and trust in the Lord and if it was James’s time to go, then the Lord would decide.  “No,” I thought, “No.  James can’t leave me.  I need him.  I need him.  I need him.”

When the ER doctor came in the second time and told us that James was gone, I became numb.  “What am I going to do?  What am I going to do?” I repeated aloud over and over again.  My Dad called for the fourth time that night.  He had already told me they were racing down.  “James is with Heavenly Father and Jesus now,” I sobbed into the phone.  After I hung up I sobbed “I need my Daddy and Mommy.”  I was again the child. 

Laura and I sat there in each others’ arms and cried.  Eventually, a Police Sergeant and the Bishop-Doctor came in.  They carried consecrated olive oil and the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood with them.  They anointed our heads and blessed us.  As soon as my blessing began, I broke down.  I had cried before, but now it ALL came out.  I could see in my mind’s eye a 20-year-old missionary James clothed in a white robe and glowing; standing by and smiling.  Was it really him; was it the Holy Spirit; was it just me?  I don’t know.  Peace filled my soul.  I had prayed with all the hope and faith I could muster that James would live and be whole again.  I knew that my faith would make it so.  I was right, and I was wrong.  His mortal body no longer functioned.  However, his Eternal Spirit was liberated and had been “taken home to that God who gave him life” (Alma 40:11).  Taken to my home with me here on earth?  No.  James was taken to his Eternal Home with an Eternal Father who loved and missed him even more than I, his Earthly Father, did.

That night as I rode home in Shane’s car thoughts and feelings flooded my mind.  “Why did it happen?”  “What did I do wrong?”  “It was all my fault.”  “What is Laura going to say, think, and feel?” “Did I miss a prompting from the Spirit?”  Mostly, though, I felt black numbness.  I was in the blackest of black holes.  I have always known Shane is a wise, wise man.  What he told me that night made a huge different.  “You can’t give into the guilt.  It will eat you up your family still needs you.”  He was right.  However, guilt is powerful, and I struggled against that power for many days, weeks and months to come. 

Later that night Laura talked to me.  I will never forget what she said.  She said that she doesn’t blame me and that she never will and that we cannot ever blame ourselves or each other for what happened. That brought so much peace, so much comfort, so much love to my aching soul.  She is truly my soul mate.  Never had I realized it with greater clarity than I did at that moment.  I am so blessed by the Lord to have her. 

The days and months that followed were a roller coaster of guilt, anxiety, depression, loneliness, peace, comfort, love, Priesthood Power, family and friends who became family.  Finally, a few months ago, I was blessed with a more lasting peace.  The guilt has finally been swept completely away. 

January was the hardest month yet.  My first birthday without my son, James, in six years descended.  Anxiety, guilt, depression took hold and didn’t let go.  What has finally brought me lasting peace?  Two very important individuals saved me:  Jesus Christ and my dear sweet Laura. 

I opened up while teaching Elders Quorum the last Sunday in January about some of the guilt I was feeling.  The following fast Sunday, when talking with one of my Priesthood leaders and good friends, he said “I don’t know what happened that night.  But I do know this:  I know Joe Farnsworth, and I know that it was not his fault.  It is not your fault.”  I was filled with peace and love through the Savior’s Atonement.

Through all of this Laura has given me unconditional, Christlike love.  It has comforted and filled my soul.  She has borne a grievous burden that no mother should ever have to bear.  She has loved me, Spencer and Grace as the Savior would.  She has listened and not judged me when I have spilled my soul to her.  She has given her all to all three of her sweet children, and yet she still served me and countless others every day.  She is always the first one to suggest that someone needs help, needs a friend, needs service.  Much like the Savior, she doesn’t just talk about serving, she serves.  Thirteen years ago this May 18^th I made the best decision I have ever made when I asked Laura to be my wife.  I was and still am thrilled and amazed that she accepted.  As you can tell from her previous post, I have obviously fooled her.  Don’t be deceived by all the nice things she said about me.  I know how weak, frail, and foolish I am.  However, for the sake of brevity, I will not enumerate my faults here.  Know this, though: Laura is more amazing that anyone, even she, could ever imagine.  I am truly, truly, truly blessed of the Lord. 

Many have said: “Wow, I can’t believe how strong you guys are.”  “You amaze me at how you put it together and go forward on a daily basis.  I don’t think I could do it.”  Well…I’m not strong.  I don’t have it put together.  The Savior is strong and  He has it put together for me. 

Jesus has said , speaking of those who are sick or physically afflicted:  “And the elders of the church, two or more, shall be called, and shall pray for and lay their hands upon them in my name; and if they die they shall die unto me, and if they live they shall live unto me.  Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection.  And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them” (Doctrine and Covenants 42: 44-46).  James did not taste of death.  It was sweet unto him.  He is with God, the Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ. 

The Prophet Alma said, when teaching his son doctrines of a revelation he had received: “Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection—Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are 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 40:11-12).  "And I also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven" (Doctrine and Covenants 137:10).   That’s where James is.  Knowing that brings me so much peace and comfort.

Just as Job of old, I too know, that my Redeemer lives and after I have died I will be with Him, Laura, Spencer, James, and Grace in our resurrected bodies and we will continue to be an Eternal Family.

Love to all,

Joseph