The scariest moment of my life, the worst two weeks I ever survived, was the week I worried my children would be taken away from me.
About a year and a half ago, someone contacted the Department of Family and Child Services (DFACS) based on a comment my then-four year old daughter had made. I came home from the grocery store to find a note on my door asking me to call the office. We set up an appointment for a counselor to come talk to our family in a week.
Although I knew I had done nothing wrong, Atlanta had recently been plagued by the deaths of several children that DFACS had investigated and not removed. I worried that they might decide to be overly cautious. I worried over what my four year old, who loves to joke and play around, might say that could be taken incorrectly. Mostly, I just worried about the ability of the government to come in and decide I was an unfit mother.
I spent most of that week on my knees in deep and fervent prayer. I am by no means a perfect mother, and every mistake I had ever made with my three children weighed upon my mind. My husband tells me that I am too negative and self-critical, and I became afraid that Heavenly Father had decided I was an unfit mother. I repented. I vowed to change. And I begged him not to take my children away.
Thankfully, the counselor who visited told me it was obvious that there were no problems with my happy, friendly children. And I spent another few nights on my knees in prayer, giving thanks.
During that interim time, one of the things I was afraid of was that my kids – then four, two and a half, and three months – would be taken away and not know what was happening. We had several conversations about how, if they were ever not with us, Mommy and Daddy would make sure we found them. If they were lost, we would always look for them. And I enunciated over and over again that we were an eternal family, sealed together for all of eternity, and absolutely no power on earth could ever separate us. I kept these conversations upbeat because I didn’t want my kids to be upset at the time; I just wanted them to know we would always look for them.
I mentioned recently the absolute joy I felt when I did family sealings in the temple last month. A chance comment in church yesterday made me compare the two feelings. I have frequently posed to myself the ‘can you imagine’ question – ‘can you imagine what would happen if you reached Heaven and could not find your children?’ I realized yesterday that I had a pretty good idea of how that might feel. Because we have been sealed in the temple, I need never know that fear eternally, but I can surely empathize with those who do.
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