The Night Eternity Shook

24 January 2013

I had known for about two weeks that my husband had been invited to participate in his own church disciplinary council. On 6 January the Stake President visited our ward and asked to meet with me. He met with Mister in December on a Sunday that I was ill and had stayed home. He was following up on the confession Mister made to our bishop and subsequent conversations that bishop had with both Mister and me. I was quite shaken by my meeting with President. He first told me that Mister’s misconduct has not yet reached the level requiring stake disciplinary action. I was shocked. I remember President explaining a little more detail and then saying, “The Lord is pretty lenient with us, huh?” In that second, I thought that we all hope for the Lord to be lenient and merciful with us. We also talked about my thoughts about leaving and divorcing Mister. President specifically told me that as my priesthood leader he didn’t believe it was time for me to leave Mister… yet. He encouraged me to focus on my mother role, to default to that responsibility since the marriage was a total disaster. We did talk some more about the difference between what I knew and what Mister confessed. President said that I had given him more to consider and he wanted to take some time to think about it.

The days that followed were difficult for me. I considered over and over again the possibility of me being prideful and wanting swift justice for my broken heart, without concern for the love and mercy that we all would want to be shown to us, which I should also want for my husband. I struggled with President’s council a bit, but I also could not deny the sense of relief and peace I felt as I let go of tasks like house hunting and trying to plan for an alternative future without my husband. Still, I didn’t fully understand how someone could persistently break sacred covenants and not have more consequences from the church in the matter. Again, I found myself working to let go of my pride and humble myself enough to see the bigger picture.

My first notice that something had changed was when I received a request from the stake president to write a detailed report regarding Mister's misconduct, via a forwarded message through our bishop. I was instructed to type out EVERYTHING I knew about Mister's misconduct and an estimate of when it occurred. I was also advised to be DETAILED and to do this report prayerfully. The report was to include at a minimum:

• How I caught him
• The conversations I had with Mister about it (details of what he confessed to me)
• The conversations with the prostitutes (details about what occurred)
• Mister's behavior toward me and the children (being specific)

It took me some time to work on that report. How much detail should I give? How far back should I reach? Which instances were significant enough to share and which others were only suspicions that wouldn’t be very helpful?

The following Sunday, 13 January the Bishop called me into his office for two reasons. One was to discuss my progress and answer any questions that I might have about this process. I told him how I’d spent the first portion of the week wrestling with my pride and really trying to humble myself, and then being quite surprised at the complete change of plans from President. We talked a little bit about how uncomfortable I felt writing this report, and I told him I was sorry that he also had to write such a report. Bishop said that it was okay; he does them all the time. (How sad.)

Then I told Bishop that the first time Mister had gone through the church discipline process, I really had stayed out of things, believing that it was between Mister, the Bishop, and the Lord. Bishop assured me that we are taught to do exactly that, but that we also need to speak up when we know something is going wrong in that process. I felt compelled to share with him then a piece of information that I had not shared after Mister’s arrest. I hadn’t told anyone else, but at the time of Mister’s arrest is when I was battling cancerous changes on my cervix and that after 13 years of marriage, I had suddenly tested positive for high-risk HPV. It was a detail I hadn’t shared with the previous Bishop because I thought I was supposed to stay out of things and I had no idea what Misterad not shared with the Bishop at that time. Bishop said it was an important detail because it was a confirmation of an action that Mister had not admitted. He asked if I wanted him to tell President about this when they talked on the phone. I told him I would put it in my report.

I ended up writing two segments of a report because it was so difficult. I made a start and then sent it to President asking if I was providing what he needed. (I had some concern about providing too much detail. I mean, how much evil did I want to expose President to? I certainly wished I didn't know that this evil even existed ... let alone being part of my husband's life.)

As they days crept closer to Mister's disciplinary council, I found myself researching to understand how the council worked and what to expect. I’m not sure why it helped to know this, but it did. Finally, the day arrived for the meeting to take place. I debated several times if I should tell Mister about the written reports. I did tell him that I’d been reading his journaling, which he wasn’t very happy about. I told him that he simply hadn’t earned the right to have me respect his privacy. He’d lied and deceived me far too often.

For me, the evening would be lined with mom’s taxi service as I shuttled our children back and forth to their activities. I was a little surprised that Mister had never asked me to attend the meeting with him. I was also shocked when he seemed so at ease with the idea that it didn’t matter what happened because he could always be re-baptized… as if that was going to be an easy process. It reminded me of Laman and Lemuel who, “knew not the dealings of that God who had created them” (1 Nephi 2:12).

I wasn't even there, but I could feel it. Mister was about 60 miles away but my heart was there in that building somehow. As the designated hour approached, I pled with the Lord to soften Mister's heart, to bless the priesthood holders on the disciplinary council, to help me heal the wounds of my children as well as my own, to bring peace and acceptance to my heart, to help me understand the impact no matter what the outcome... and my face dripped with tears as I felt the full force of pain and anguish that it had come to this moment.

I could hardly breathe and my body began to shake as I tried to imagine what his potential excommunication would mean... no more ordaining our sons, no more priesthood blessings, no going inside the temple before missions or for marriages, trying to explain why he no longer wears garments or never takes the sacrament or so many other things... and this was so tiny in comparison to the eternal impact on our entire family. I struggled to regain my composure as I embarked on another taxi run and began to sing some hymns and children’s songs to myself. I completely broke down as “Families Can Be Together Forever” came to my lips and I knew in that moment with certainty that Mister would be excommunicated before the evening was over. I had no idea how that would impact my own promised blessings, my sealing bonds with our children. But, I knew it meant certain darkness for my husband and that the path ahead was not going to be easy if he desired to return to the gospel path and be baptized once again. As my heart ached, tears flowed, and my body shook once again, the thought came to my mind that this was the night that eternity shook.

“And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people [the Noachians], and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?
“And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity and to all eternity?” (Moses 7:28–29).
“The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;
“And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood” (Moses 7:32–33).
“Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands.
“And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook” (Moses 7:40–41).

“An absolutely supernal, marvelous insight! Our Father in Heaven is so tender even for his most mistaken children. Enoch began to rejoice when God told him of Jesus’ coming in the meridian of time and the Atonement. He rejoiced again when God told him of the great latter-day Restoration. Not always, but more than we know, when we are confronted in the human circumstance with the difference between what could be and what is, we do not weep alone!” (“The Pathway of Discipleship” by Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, from a talk given at a Church Educational System fireside at BYU on 4 January 1998.)