"My Peace I Give Unto You"
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Anguish at 3:00 a.m.
In 2002, December 6th fell on a Friday. The evening before, I had gone to bed early, all too aware of the long day that lay ahead. By 1:00 a.m. I realized that sleep was not going to come, so I wandered alone through the darkened house. The tiny crescent moon had set, and the night seemed darker than usual outside. Pacing the floor in the wee hours of the morning is an activity I had come to know well in the past several years, but for the next three hours I paced the floor with a sense of anxiety that rose with every passing minute.
Four days earlier, I had received a telephone call from one of “my” missionaries. In the late 1970s, I had served as a mission president in the California Ventura Mission, and I was stunned when this missionary informed me that Lowell Hansen, one of our elders, had taken his life the night before, leaving behind a wife and eight children. The rest of that day I thought of Elder Hansen and the experiences we had shared more than two decades ago in the mission field, and my emotions were very close to the surface. My heart went out to his wife and children, and I wondered how they were dealing with the pain of this tragedy.
The next day, Tuesday, I received another telephone call – this time from Emma Jean, Elder Hansen’s wife. She explained some of the circumstances surrounding his death and asked if I would be willing to be the main speaker for his funeral in the little Idaho farming community where they had lived for several years. I was honored that she would want me to do so, and I told her that I was most willing to accept the invitation.
Now, as I walked the halls of my home on a dark and sleepless night, I was feeling some pain of my own. My mind was racing. In little more than three hours I was going to get on a plane with Gail, my wife; fly to Idaho Falls; rent a car; and then drive to the small town where the funeral would take place. Ever since Emma Jean’s call, I had agonized over what I knew would be one of the most difficult, important, and challenging speaking assignments I had ever been given.
Endless questions coursed through my soul: Why would the family ask me to speak at this funeral? What could I possibly say that would ease the pain or be a source of help or comfort, especially given the tragic circumstance of Lowell’s untimely death? Why had I in particular been asked to speak? What could I offer through the spoken word that would help this family, whose departed husband and father I had seen only occasionally, at best, in the years since the mission? Surely someone who knew Lowell and Emma Jean and their family better than I would be a more appropriate speaker for this occasion. How could I help alleviate the pain that must be weighing down the hearts and minds of the family and friends who attend the funeral? Why would Elder Hansen have taken his life? What was he thinking? What were his children thinking? What were they feeling? My mind kept running in circles. How could I, Hyrum Smith, say anything that would be meaningful?
This was an especially agonizing problem for me because public speaking is something I do for a living. I have spoken to audiences all over the world and given speeches in almost every major city in the United States. And here I was, finding myself literally without words, trying to figure out what to say that would help.
As I paced I realized that a major source of my anguish had to do with the fact that I myself had just completed a long and painful four-year journey to regain my membership in the Church and, later, to have my priesthood blessings reinstated. My mind vividly recalled much of the anguish and uncertainty I experienced as my soul was patiently tutored by the Holy Spirit. There was the defining moment, as I listened to a general conference address in October 1998, when I knew that I had been living a lie for several years, that I could no longer hide from the Lord, and that I could not go on living that way. At that time, it became clear that the only thing that really mattered was to make sure my relationship with my Savior was right. I knew the road would be difficult, and I remembered the fear that I might lose everything that was dear to me – my wife, my eternal family, and my chance to return to my Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son.
In those early morning hours, I found myself reflecting on the entire process, not only the pain and anguish I had experienced but also the pain and anguish I had inflicted on my family, my wife, my children, and 640 former missionaries who had looked to me for an example. I found myself remembering the day-by-day process of putting my relationship back together with my Heavenly Father and repairing my relationship with my wife and children, with my colleagues at work, and with my missionaries, trying to restore relationships and heal the wounds I had caused. I found myself remembering the anguish of that, the sorrow I had experienced, and the sometimes overwhelming feeling that I would never survive it all.
I remember the pain and anguish of people who loved and respected me and expected better of me. I remembered the look in the eyes of my children as I explained to them what their father had done.
That early morning as I paced the floor, I remembered the lessons I had learned about forgiving and forgiveness, and how incredibly difficult it is for us mortals to forgive. I remembered just how difficult it was to forgive myself, and, as I distanced myself from the transgression, I could remember how foolish I had felt and how amazed I was at the stupidity of what I had done. I wondered where my brain could possibly have been, and I marveled at how I had deceived myself over such a long period of time.
But not all of the memories in those early morning hours were painful. I thought again of the time when the incessant tide of pain began to subside, when I finally felt that I was able to communicate again with my Father in Heaven, and at long last, the joy of the moment when I knew that the Lord had forgiven me. I will never forget that moment – the relief from the anguish and the peace that came with it.
Following this came the memories of the day when, after all the proper procedures and interviews and approvals had been completed, I reentered the waters of baptism and, with my son Joseph officiating, received the cleansing and peace that come with that holy ordinance. I had reentered the gate and was once again on the straight and narrow path.
All of this was coursing through my soul, and it was three-thirty in the morning. I still hadn’t focused on what to say at the funeral. But I had a magnificent experience of remembering, of having the Spirit walk me through the whole experience I had gone through in those previous four years. And now, with the help of the Spirit, it finally came to me why I had been asked to speak at that funeral. All those memories – both the wrenching and the joyful – had not just been a self-indulgent exercise. I suddenly realized that I was perhaps profoundly qualified to speak at the funeral of this young man who had taken his own life. Lowell Hansen, my missionary, had made a mistake – a huge mistake, a most serious mistake – in taking his life. He wouldn’t be able to restore his life, but like me, in spite of my terrible mistakes, he would be allowed to repent. That thought, seared through my soul like a bolt of lightning.
In my heart I knew that Lowell Hansen would be allowed to go through the process I had just completed; he would be allowed to experience the same remorse about his mistake; he would be given the opportunity to make recompense with his Father in Heaven; he would be allowed to make things right with his family. It would not be easy, but in the Lord’s due time he could be totally forgiven of his transgression. His was not an irrevocable mistake, just a colossal mistake, perhaps the ultimate piece of bad judgment. He had made a decision that only God had the right to make, but I felt certain that a loving Father in Heaven would still allow the healing of repentance in such cases. By bringing to recollection of my own suffering over my sins and mistakes, the Lord had let me know exactly the kind of pain Lowell was feeling. And I also knew the path Lowell would have to take and the joyous destination to which that path would lead him.
As dawn approached I desperately wanted to convey to Lowell’s family and friends in that funeral all these things I knew to be true, now more than ever. Could I explain to Lowell’s wife and children that their husband and father had made a mistake and that he felt awful about that mistake? Could I help them understand that whatever caused him to take his life wasn’t important; that what was really important was what he was thinking about now, and that the holy process he was entering would eventually remove the pain he was experiencing?
I knew with great certainty that even though we would be holding a funeral service for him in a few hours, Lowell Hansen was and is very much alive. His spirit now resides in the spirit world, where he can continue to grow and learn and repent. He is going through the same anguish we all go through after having made a big mistake.
Will the Lord allow him to repent? Yes. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “There is never a time when the spirit is too old to approach God. All are within the reach of pardoning mercy, who have not committed the unpardonable sin.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976], 191.) And Joseph further explained that the Lord “knows the situation of both the living and the dead, and has made ample provision for their redemption, and the laws of the kingdom of God, whether in this world, or in the world to come.”(Ibid., 220.)
So the opportunity for repentance exists in the spirit world as it does in mortality, though it may be more difficult for us in that realm than it is here. Will the Lord forgive Lowell? Of course, once he has truly repented and done all he can to pay the price – the same requirements all of us have here on earth. Will his blessings eventually be restored? I believe they will, although only his Heavenly Father is fully aware of the opportunities to bless lives, especially the lives of his family, that Lowell has missed because of his premature departure from mortality.
These thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks. The important thing was that thought the Savior’s atonement, Lowell would be all right in the end. The answers were all there. The gospel of Jesus Christ answers all of these questions. I believed that, now more than ever before.
Would the Lord somehow give me the ability to share that message with the Hansen family? Of course, and I knew that with a surety. It was now about four o’clock in the morning, and I found myself very excited. The anguish and concern were gone; my inabilities and frailties were no longer a concern. I found myself eager for the new day, impatient to get on the plane. I drove faster than I really should have on the highway to the little community. Eager to be at the pulpit, I felt that the opening song went on forever. When it came time for me to speak, I stood before an audience that extended well back into the cultural hall, and I shared with gratitude and love what the Spirit had taught me earlier that morning.
So this story is about pain, its important role in the eternal plan, and how we can deal with or alleviate it. I write not so much about physical pain but about the emotional and spiritual pain that in its extreme manifestations can wrack our souls with the torments of hell. I’m not the first nor will I be the last person who has experienced the excruciating pain that comes from transgression and feeling alienated from our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, our Savior. But I hope that some of the insights I have gained in my own process of repentance and dealing with its attendant pain will be a source of encouragement and comfort to others who find themselves in similar circumstances. It is my hope that in reading this, you too will come to understand some great truths that the gospel so plainly encompasses but that we often don’t understand until we are called upon to endure the pain that comes to everyone as part of the mortal experience.
Many years ago my own mission president, Elder Marion D. Hanks, taught me a profound truth: Pain is inevitable, misery is optional. We cannot avoid pain in our lives, but we do have control over how we respond to that pain. And we also have the divine help of the Holy Spirit in dealing with the pain that inevitably comes.
These eternal truths came to have special meaning to me in my own experience with pain during the events I relived that night in early December. Through those experiences, although painful to recall, I have come to better understand the role that pain plays in the eternal plan, how we can not only endure pain but also learn and grow from confronting it and, with the Lord’s merciful help, overcome it.
Some pain comes from the fact that we live in an imperfect world. Bad things can and do happen to all of us, and most often these are not of our own choosing or doing. But the most excruciating pain is that we inflict upon ourselves through the kind of self-deception that results in transgression of the natural laws the Lord had given us, and whose consequences we bring upon ourselves. Pain truly is inevitable for all of us, whether imposed or self-inflicted.
But it’s also true that misery is not the inevitable result of pain but an option that we can choose or reject. Understanding the role of pain in the eternal plan, and some of the ways we learn and grow from it, while not being diverted or destroyed by it, is critical.
The Atonement is real and its redemption is freely given to all of us if we will but avail ourselves of the Savior’s mercy. Sadly, it took my own experience with the most difficult kinds of spiritual and emotional pain for me to fully learn this greatest of all truths that the gospel of Jesus Christ can teach us. I hope and pray that these thoughts will help you avoid the kinds of self-deception that produce much of our pain, and to endure those pains you must endure with the assurance that there is divine light and love and joy at the end of the journey.
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Hyrum W. Smith
2004
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