With My Hand in His

By Heather Tuttle

When I was experiencing my first semesters of college, the professors would hand out a syllabus outlining what would be expected of me to accomplish in class throughout that semester. As I read through each one, my heart would pound, and my hands would sweat as I felt my inadequacy in meeting the requirements for the class. I saw that I clearly lacked the knowledge, experience, and skills to be successful, and it made me want to turn and run from the classroom. However, with time, I learned that by the time each assignment was due, I had been given what I needed in order to successfully meet those requirements, no matter the difficulty. I believe Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us, a syllabus of sorts. Part of his plan includes facing unimaginable trials, things we would exclaim we could never do, never endure. It is with and through these challenges that if we allow, God grows and strengthens us, giving us power to endure and making us more than we thought we could be. Each challenge acts as a springboard, which moves us to another level of ability in forgiveness, patience, faith, empathy, gratitude, humility, prayer, and so many more attributes and skills. This book contains my stories of trial, faith, and miracles in my son Jonah's fight to live and heal after a life-threatening traumatic brain injury, which left him in a coma. It also contains those earlier experiences of my life that the Lord used to build my abilities to endure, strengthen my relationship with Him, and teach me how He moves and communicates with me in my life. Whoever said God doesn't give us anything we can't handle was so very wrong! We are given many things we couldn't possibly endure without our Heavenly Father walking beside us, guiding us, and strengthening us to bear those things we couldn't possibly imagine we could. These stories are of my very profound and tender walk with the Lord with my hand in His.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098040567

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With My Hand in His

Heather Tuttle

Copyright © 2020 by Heather Tuttle

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Introduction

These pages not only contain the story of my son’s fight to live, my experiences as I witnessed his process, the interactions I had with others, and the strength and insight I was given from heaven; it also contains other life experiences with my nine wonderful children, which gave me the preparation, knowledge, and capacity to understand the dealings of heaven and feel the love of a Father in Heaven who never leaves our side. These are stories of walking with my hand in His!

It has been an incredibly unreal three years of heartache, joy, miracles, love, connection to heaven, and a whole new relationship with my Heavenly Father! We have all learned we can do hard things! God is real. He is there to hear our cries and mend the broken heart. Whoever said that the Lord doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle was so, so, so wrong! He allows many things we couldn’t possibly handle without him carrying us, walking beside us, and guiding us. There are just those things that we must only look up in order to have the strength, peace, and healing to endure! He asks us to reach up and look to him. These pearls are evidence that there is a God, and he is in charge.

Some of the names have been changed.

Part 1

The Lord Prepares Us to Endure with Faith

1970—My Abuse

When I was five years old, my mother decided she wanted to return to school and enter the dental hygiene program at our local college in the Bay Area, near San Francisco. The first year she was in school, a sweet little old woman named Marie tended my baby brother and I at our home; however, when Marie had to quit, my mother sought help from a woman in our church ward/congregation who did day care out of her own home. I have no idea what her actual name was, but we simply called her Findley.

Findley was a frazzled woman who was always in one of those smock type aprons. She was probably in her early fifties and had three older children living at home with her—two of them in their twenties and a teenage boy named Ricky who was around sixteen. Findley’s home was only a place to be; she rarely engaged with us in any way except to scold us. The television or playing in her small backyard were the only sources of entertainment. To this day, I can’t stand to see characters of, or hear music from, the cartoon Speed Racer or the show Gilligan’s Island, because these shows were part of my experience there.

Findley’s husband came home from work before we were picked up in the afternoon, and we were tortured by the smell of dinner cooking. We watched the family eat dinner as we sat in the living room, starving, peering at them through a baby gate, which was locked tight in the kitchen doorway to keep us out of that family space. I felt like I was there every day for at least ten hours a day, even though it couldn’t have been more than four.

As if I weren’t tortured already, one day, while I was in the backyard, playing, Ricky sauntered outside. I don’t remember details of what Ricky did to me outside or the exact number of times these incidents occurred, but I do know he touched me and kissed me while we were pushed up against the side of the house, away from the view of the kitchen window where Findley could see. I also knew it wasn’t okay, and it made me feel sick. I have a vivid memory that he was sticky and clammy from sweat and smelled horrifically like bad breath and foul body order. I also know that I didn’t know how to make him stop.

We walked to Findley’s after school every day, and I remember thinking one day that I just couldn’t bear to go, so instead of walking there, I decided to walk to my home and wait for my mom to get there. Oh, how I was reprimanded for that move; I never tried that again. I can only imagine how terrified my mom was when she was notified that I had never showed up to Findley’s house. I never told my mother about the incidents between Ricky and I; it never occurred to me to talk about it.

When I was ten years old, my parents made the big decision to leave the San Francisco area and move to the little town of Paradise, California. My mom was excited because her oldest sister and family already lived there, and my mom’s parents were in the process of moving there from Reno, Nevada. My mom’s family was going to be living near one another for the first time in years, and the idea of family togetherness in all things holiday, special events, and vacations was all she talked about. Once we moved to Paradise, me and my siblings became latch-key kids. We didn’t have to go to a babysitter anymore. After all, we now lived in the safe little community of Paradise!

Until we moved to Paradise, my mother was the only person in her family who was a member of our church besides her sister’s husband, Pete, and he was what my mom called a Jack Mormon, because he was inactive and not living the beliefs. Within a year of everyone living near each other, Pete became active, and every single family member was baptized, comprising of about fifteen convert baptisms. Our family now filled two of the big center pews of the chapel, and we looked like the picture-perfect example of successful conversion and baptism. On the outside, our family was one to envy.

We called my uncle, Pete, even though that wasn’t really his first name. He was my aunt’s second husband. The two of them never had any children together; however, he had four children from his previous marriage, and my aunt had three children from her previous marriage. Pete was charismatic. He was a fire chief in the Sacramento area and commuted there from Paradise until he retired a few years after moving to Paradise. He played an active part in the Little League baseball program in Paradise and held many church callings like Elders Quorum President and Ordinance Worker in the Oakland Temple. If there was a fence or anything that needed to be built, he was there to help. He enjoyed all things outdoors, especially camping and boating. He seemed generous with his time, money, and belongings. He seemed the perfect citizen, church member, husband, father, and uncle to everyone except his victims.

Not long after we moved to Paradise, my uncle began to groom me. Whatever I wanted or he perceived I wanted, he would get it for me. I received incredible preferential treatment over my brother and sister. Pete was rude to and intolerant of both my sister and brother when no one was looking.

My cousin, Pete’s stepson, was just a few months older than me, and we were in the same grade level at school. He used my cousin to get to me, everyone thinking he was such a terrific stepfather and loving uncle. He began inviting me to go on all kinds of weekend campouts with he and my cousin, weekday outings, and sleepovers with my cousin. He invited me to go out to a camper he had parked beside the house to rest and watch television when I was supposed to be at the house playing with my cousin. Because he would ask me in front of my aunt, I would feel obliged to go wherever it was he told me to go.

The sexual abuse happened everywhere we were, alone or amongst people. If he were lying on the couch watching television, he told me to come lie beside him, asking my aunt to get us a blanket, even when it was eighty degrees in the room. It happened on camping trips with my cousin lying next to us, in the black of night, in the bed of my uncle’s truck. It happened when he was coming or going, through a kiss which involved his tongue. He had names for various things he did to me, and he always told me that I should never talk about what we did, because people wouldn’t understand our special relationship. He said he was just being the father to me that my own father didn’t have the time to be. At Christmas, my siblings received books of scripture, and I received bikini underwear, and nobody seemed to noticed the vast difference in meaning between those gifts.

During this time period of abuse, I hated nighttime, even if I wasn’t anywhere around my uncle; however, I couldn’t explain why. I became depressed and scared as evening began to approach each day. I was plagued with horrifically painful stomachaches, which would come on toward the end of each day. My mother learned that if I soaked in a warm bathtub, the pain would subside enough for me to fall asleep.

After a month or so of these stomachaches, my mother took me to the doctor who then referred me to a general surgeon for help. Both of these doctors were members of our church congregation, so I saw these men every week outside of their profession. After the surgeon’s exam, he stepped back, leaned against the exam table with his arms folded, and told my mother that he felt I was making all of the pain stories up; he tapped me on the knee while saying, We call this being a hypochondriac.

I left his office, terribly humiliated and discouraged that he thought I was making it all up and that he couldn’t or wouldn’t help me. I was sobbing, and my mother just turned to me and said, I believe you!

I would wake randomly in the middle of the night, shaking, with cold and clammy hands and feet, feeling as though I was going to combust with fear, although I couldn’t explain to anyone why. I would go into my mother’s room and wake her. She would go fill a large pan with hot water and put my feet in it while she wrapped my hands in one wet hot towel after another. She would pray with me and talk to me until I was calm enough to fall asleep again.

My father gave me numerous blessings in the middle of the night and never complained about having been woken up to do it. I remember feeling sleep-deprived. I was exceptionally clingy to my mom and begged her every day to stay home from work and not make me go to school. My mom didn’t work on Fridays, so I missed a great deal of school to stay home and be with her on those days. I stopped being able to have sleepovers at my friends’ homes. I was generally a red-hot mess emotionally and physically; however, I never connected the dots that this was happening to me because of the abuse I was experiencing at the time.

When I was twelve and could be out of the house more on my own, I filled the long hours between school and the time my mother returned home from work by walking around the downtown area of Paradise. I hated being home alone without my mom. If I could find change, I would go buy a huge peppermint stick from a corner gas station there and wander in and out of the boutiques and stores on my way back home.

One day, while in a boutique, I saw some necklaces I thought my mother would like; however, I had no money. I grabbed two of my favorites and walked to another part of the store, tucked them into my pocket, and walked out of the store. I was so excited to give them to her! Several months went by, and one day, my mother was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, putting one of the necklaces on. I was so miserable, and the feeling of guilt poured over me. The words were right on my lips. I so badly wanted to tell her the truth about the necklaces.

Finally, with tears in my eyes, I told my mom that I had stolen the necklaces. She turned to me with a horrified look on her face and told me we had to take them back!

The next thing I knew, we were in the car with both necklaces lying in my lap. My mother walked up to a girl at the front desk of the store and asked to talk to the manager. The manager approached, and my mother walked away with the woman while I stood shaking and softly crying. The manager then approached me and asked me to follow her. She invited me to sit in a chair toward the back of the store. I don’t remember what she said to me. I only remember the feeling was kind and forgiving as I explained how sorry I was for stealing the necklaces.

On the way home, my mother turned to me and asked whatever possessed me to steal something. I was still feeling wracked with mental pain, and I blurted out angrily, "You don’t have to have your uncle put his tongue in your mouth all of the time!"

Again, I got another horrified look from my mother, and she swerved the car to the shoulder of the road and stopped. "What are you talking about?" my mom yelled at me.

All I could think was, What have I done? I then proceeded to tell her about the awful kisses and how I had asked Pete to stop once, but he hadn’t. I tried to tell her how he was hurting me, but it made little sense and was incredibly embarrassing to talk about. My mother started crying and then finished driving us home. Now I was feeling guilty for upsetting her for nothing; I thought, I should have just kept it to myself!

I knew something was going on for weeks, because my mother and father would talk quietly in whatever room they were in. Sometimes my mother was crying, and I would hear my father sternly say, Ginna! It was years later that my mom shared with me that my father had a dream several weeks before I had told my mother about my abuse. He had told my mother that he thought it was just a nightmare; however, he was shown, in detail, what happened to me the night of the incident I had shared with my mother. I’m uncertain if my father would have believed me had he not been given that experience. I am so thankful to know that the Lord loved me enough to go before me and share what I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe.

My aunt and uncle who had moved to a house behind ours the year before were mysteriously moving back to the Sacramento area and hadn’t been around us in weeks. We stopped sitting together in church too, and I felt anger being emitted from my adult cousins and my aunt.

One day, my mom informed me that I would be meeting with the bishop of our ward. My mom went to the church with me, but I went into his office alone. I was asked to sit in a chair right next to his. My hands were clammy and my stomach felt like it had knives in it. The bishop turned to me and with a very stern and serious face said, Why don’t you tell me what you’re accusing your uncle of.

I already felt as though I were in trouble, and I had a hard time forming the words. Every time he kisses me, he puts his tongue in my mouth, and I don’t like it.

The bishop moved forward in his chair so he was closer to me, and then rested his elbows on the armrests while he interlocked his fingers over his lap and waited for me to tell him more. When I didn’t, he asked, Is that all?

I didn’t answer. In my mind, I was thinking, No, that is not all, but I didn’t know how to tell him about the super duper back rubs that were so painful and that there was something hard and sticky and smelly he would put next to my bum when he made me lay next to him or that he made me bathe with the bathroom door open. It was all so embarrassing, and now I was in so much trouble.

When I didn’t say anymore, he moved his head toward me and asked, "You are going to tear your entire family apart for that? You need to forget about this and never talk about it again!"

I left his office, wanting to die. My uncle had denied ever having any inappropriate relationship with me at all.

A short time later with my mom by my side, my aunt and uncle stood in our driveway. I am uncertain why they were there, but my aunt stood back from us, which I interpreted as anger for me, while my uncle knelt down beside me and said he hadn’t meant to hurt me and that he had only treated me as though I were one of his own daughters. He told me that I could come visit him in Sacramento, which I took as an invitation to make things right with everyone and asked my mom if I could go. Thankfully, she said no! Oh, how I felt so guilty for saying anything! I asked myself, Did he really hurt me by the things he did? I wasn’t bleeding or anything! My family was falling apart, and it was all my fault!

I was molested again at the age of thirteen by the husband of the family I babysat for. He was in his thirties, owned his own electric company, and was also a member of our church congregation. He liked to talk about sexual subjects with his brother in my presence, trying to engage me in the conversation. He made me kiss him at the end of the night in order to get paid. He used to ask me to stay the night, because it would be too late when they returned, and I could just go to sleep, and he would take me home in the morning. One night, I woke to him removing my jeans, and he told me he was trying to make me more comfortable.

One morning, I discovered that he was hiding in the closet, peeking out while I was in the room, changing from my nightgown to my clothes. After about a year of this, I finally told my mom about it and asked her to talk to him. I told her to tell him that I wasn’t going to babysit for them any longer. His wife was quite upset that I had so abruptly quit being the sitter she could count on, and I felt a little bad, but I was beginning to get pretty sick of being treated that way and was thinking there must be something really wrong with me that only old creepy men liked me. I thought many times, Why aren’t boys my own age wanting me like these men? My high school years were fun and hard. I dated all of the wrong kind of guys and was continually molested by them too.

I graduated from high school and attended one year of BYU. I got engaged and married to Tom before I could start my second year at BYU, and I was eternally grateful I never had to date again. I felt I was finally safe! However, two months before I had my second baby, Tom and I moved into one of my parents’ homes, which was right next door to theirs. This move put me right smack in the middle of what I called The Family Compound; it was one big pile of dysfunction.

My aunt and Pete had moved back to Paradise and purchased another home directly behind my parents. My cousins and grandparents also purchased homes on the same block. Everyone’s yard was connected with paths and gates.

I always thought if my abuse was going to affect me, it would affect my sexual relationship in my marriage. However, the actual way it affected me couldn’t be counted. It affected who I dated and what I let those I dated do to me. I was constantly at war between being a daughter of God and feeling like a slut with little value. It devastated my self-esteem.

I hated all men, and that included God and my own father. I trusted no one. I had such intense anger, I thought it would absolutely consume me at times. I couldn’t hug and kiss my children after they reached the age they could return the affection, because I worried that I would abuse them; I had been told those who are abused eventually turn into abusers.

I became anorexic and suffered from anxiety/panic disorder, which significantly impacted my daily life: I couldn’t sit in church unless it was in the back of the chapel at the very end of the row by the exit. I couldn’t attend the temple for eight long years, because I felt so claustrophobic in the sessions and couldn’t let anyone touch me, especially someone behind a veil I couldn’t see. I had anxiety attacks on the freeway or any road when the traffic was backed up. I couldn’t finish grocery shopping sometimes because I couldn’t stand in any line if someone got behind me. I couldn’t go to movies or eat out at restaurants without severe panic attacks. I had a hard time in doctors’ offices if the waiting room got too full.

I couldn’t get insured for counseling when we changed insurance companies because of my preexisting mental health conditions. I felt I had to push my husband away before he pushed me away, because I didn’t believe that a man could truly love a woman for just being herself. But the worst thing was the belief I held that I was to forgive and forget in order to be forgiven myself. I felt that even if I was able to forgive someday, I would never ever be able to forget, so I was damned!

On April 10, 1988, I gave birth to my first baby girl, Austin Brittney. I was absolutely and completely shocked that I had been given a girl! I had been sure that the baby I carried was another baby boy, a brother for my son, Zachary. Not that I had ever actually given voice to the idea, but it never ever crossed my mind that I would have a girl.

Her birth was crazy fast! One minute I was putting a steak on the barbecue to cook, and two hours later, I was holding the most amazing and beautiful baby girl! I was flabbergasted that the Lord had entrusted me with this most precious helpless little being! I was absolutely in love and struck with terror! The day following her birth, I experienced my very first full-blown horrific panic attack as I was sitting in my hospital bed changing, Austin’s diaper; I, of course, had no idea what was happening to me. I thought I was going to die.

The same week I brought Austin home from the hospital, Pete unexpectedly knocked on my front door in the middle of the afternoon. When I opened the door, I felt the blood leave my head. He said he needed to borrow some butter. I left him at the door and brought the butter to him. He tried to make small talk, but I was feeling terror and didn’t engage in his bantering.

After I shut the door, I was flooded with panic and tried to call Tom at work, but he couldn’t come to the phone. I needed someone, so I called my mother at work. She knew something was terribly wrong and rearranged her patients so she could come home to be with me. I had never forgotten I had been sexually abused; however, all of a sudden, I was having vivid memories of smells and feelings, and because I now had experienced a sexual relationship as an adult, the clear understanding of what Pete had done to me now had definition—erection, ejaculation.

Over the next several months, I dropped to eighty-seven pounds. I could not eat. I would put food in my mouth, but I couldn’t swallow it and would have to spit it back out. I would stay awake for three days at a time before I could sleep longer than just a couple of hours. The anxiety was not only mental pain, it was physical pain, and the thought of running in front of a truck for relief was constant. It was strange because I so very much wanted to live, but not if I had to live in this continuous state of anxiety and complete fear.

One day, while at one of Austin’s baby checkups, the pediatrician told me that Austin looked great, but he was worried about her mama. He asked if there was something going on with me. I was shocked that he noticed, and I felt embarrassed and yet thankful for his care. I told him that I couldn’t ever sleep or eat. I told him that I would play VHS tapes of church conference addresses through the night because listening to those helped calm me a little. I hadn’t associated my memories of my abuse with the anorexia and panic/anxiety I was experiencing, so I never mentioned any of the memories to him.

After I finished talking, he told me he felt I had Mormon Mother’s Syndrome (an issue women from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints experience when they feel they are falling short of perfection) and he prescribed Valium for me and sent me on my way. I never took the Valium because I was afraid of becoming addicted. I was working as a medical assistant and knew how scary that was.

A few months after Austin turned one, I was feeling desperate for help. I thought that maybe I was schizophrenic or bipolar. I had discovered that I was pregnant again and was scared. I didn’t know who to call for counseling or even how all of that worked, but I knew I needed help.

One night, I was so despaired that I decided to call one of my uncles who was a doctor in the southern California area. It was so rare that I ever talked to this side of the family, so I knew they felt the severity of the situation after they calmly listened to my plight and told me they would call me the next day with some ideas. My uncle formed a plan to get Tom and I away from Paradise, but the only part he shared with us in the beginning was the part about giving us a getaway. He paid for us to come down for a vacation to Disneyland, and when we got there, he had a list of cabinet shops lined out for Tom to interview with.

By the time we left from our vacation, Tom was employed, and we were moving to southern California. Tom moved three months before I was able to. In that three-month time period, my bishop guided me to my first counselor. This was the beginning of unraveling my childhood trauma.

My pregnancy was turning out to be a disaster. I had gone into preterm labor at twenty-two weeks and was put to bed, just three weeks after making the move to southern California. I felt so thankful that I had been able to get our family moved and unpacked before I was put to bed. I struggled to keep my baby girl in utero to the goal of thirty-six weeks gestation. Chloe Nichole was born one month early, healthy and whole.

After counseling with my bishop, I was sent to a new wonderful counselor. I learned many things about abuse and trauma and panic/anxiety disorder. I was relieved to understand that I could show affection to my children because I wouldn’t just turn into a pedophile, just because I was abused myself. I learned that what was happening to me was a common response for survivors of abuse, which brought me some peace. However, with all of this knowledge, I was not getting any better; my anorexia was taking over, my panic/anxiety kept me from living a productive and fun life outside of my home, and I was so incredibly angry; at times, I seriously felt like it would devour me.

When Chloe was a little over a year old, I became pregnant again. I knew it was going to be another problem pregnancy. I was scared. My obstetrician told me he was concerned. When I came for my visits, he insisted that I stand backwards on the scale so I couldn’t see my weight. He set me up with a nutritionist to help me with caloric intake. He told me that I wasn’t good at being pregnant and maybe to consider terminating my pregnancy to save my own life. This was absolutely not an option for me. I loved and wanted every single baby the Lord saw fit to give me.

I went home from one of my doctor visits, completely discouraged and feeling like I was failing myself, my children, my husband, and especially the sweet baby I was carrying. I had gotten an F on my daily caloric intake calendar from the nutritionist. I hadn’t gained any weight, and I could tell my doctor was discouraged by my selfishness. I was being put to bed for the rest of the twenty weeks of my pregnancy.

I went home and poured my heart out to my Heavenly Father. I told him I didn’t know how to fix what was wrong with me and that I was doing all I knew how to do to fix myself and nothing was working. I apologized for not being able to forgive and for hating my perpetrators and extended family so incredibly much. I told him how sorry I was that I couldn’t even eat for my unborn baby. I very desperately wanted to and told him that my doctor said that I was hurting my baby and that if I didn’t change, my baby would be very sick; or worse, she may die. I told the Lord that I didn’t think I could handle that.

As I closed my prayer, laid my head down, and closed my eyes, I heard the words, I Am the Great I Am! With these words, the Lord taught me that he is the great physician and he was in charge of me and my baby. He taught me that he was well-aware of all that was going on and I was to look to him and no other. I was filled with peace; somehow, he was going to make me enough.

One afternoon, as I was laying in my bed, I got a phone call from my mother telling me that Pete had just been arrested. He had been molesting one of his young granddaughters, and she had told her teacher at school. Because she told her teacher, there was no one to hide the story. It was being taken to the authorities, something my own parents were told not to do by our bishop all those years ago. She said that he would likely be slapped on the wrist because it was going to be considered a first offense.

After I hung up the phone, the anger raged in me. Finally, Pete would be held accountable for what he was doing. I wanted someone to hear me! I decided to call Paradise Police and see if someone would listen to my story. A detective got on the phone and asked if he could record what I had to say. There was so much peace given to me in the one statement: I want to hear your story.

During the years of my abuse, I had tried to tell someone my story. I woke my sister up in the middle of the night during one of those nights I was experiencing terror and cold-sweats and asked if I could tell her about what was happening to me with Pete. She told me she didn’t want to hear it. I also had tried to tell one of my young woman leaders at church, and she told me she didn’t want to hear it. I learned to feel ashamed of my story and didn’t try again until the day I told my mom in the car.

The counselor I was working with encouraged me to write letters to the two perpetrators from Paradise and gave me the option to burn them or send them. I found a great need to send them; however, I asked my bishop if he would be willing to send them to the stake president of Paradise and have him call the men into his office to read the letters. My bishop said he would. I was fearful too because the stake president over Paradise at that time was the surgeon of my childhood who had told my mother I was a hypochondriac all of those years ago. My counselor prepared me for likely responses from these men; they would probably not respond the way I hoped.

Several weeks went by before my bishop notified me of what had happened with my letters. The stake president told my bishop that my uncle took the envelope and didn’t read the letter. He told the president he knew what he had done to me and didn’t need to read about it. The man I used to babysit for opened the envelope and read the contents and told the president that I had a very vivid imagination and laughed his way out the door. My heart broke for both responses. I felt it was a cop-out that my uncle got to choose not to read what I had lived, and the other man minimized and negated the wounds he had so selfishly inflicted. To this day, I have never heard another word from that guy. The man I babysat for eventually was called as a branch president over a Spanish-speaking branch.

About a week before my baby was born, I was at the kitchen table, busily stitching a baby blanket together. I was feeling happy and without stress or anxiety in that moment; it was a rare feeling for me. Tom came into the room; he had just come home from a meeting with the stake high council. He asked if he could read something to me. It was an article they had discussed at the meeting. The article was called Balm of Gilead by Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Tom had never asked to read me anything, so I listened quite intently. I felt every word touch my soul and I recognized that had I heard those words on any other day, they might frustrate me and make me angry; however, this night, the words soothed me.

When Tom was finished reading, he left the room. After he was gone and I was alone again, I heard in my mind the soft words, You may forget, for it is written in heaven. With the words, I felt a very physical warmth spread from my toes travel up through my body and out the top of my head. In that very physical experience, I felt the anger leave my body. In that instant, I was taught that this was what the Lord meant when he asked us to forgive and forget. He asks us to forget the anger and other destructive feelings that are like a cancer to our soul and holds us hostage. The spirit taught me that there are just some things that are bigger than I am; I had tried all I knew to do, and in that blink of an eye, the gift of the atonement took the anger from me.

In that very moment, I was also healed from my anorexia, even while I wouldn’t be cognizant of it for about a week. I had never associated my anorexia with my anger! In my mind, I saw a large heavenly book open, and I was given understanding that all of the details of what I had suffered at the hands of my perpetrators had been carefully written down in my Heavenly Father’s book. He knew the sanctity of my experiences and showed me they were hallowed.

My baby was being monitored every three days now by what they called nonstress tests. My baby was not growing, and I had very little amniotic fluid, which they were measuring carefully. A week after my miraculous healing, I had decided not to go to one of the appointments at the hospital. I was feeling so emotionally great; I wanted to just skip the visit.

Just as I had confirmed in my head that I would miss my appointment, my girlfriend showed up and asked if I was ready to go to the hospital; she was there to take me. I told her that I wasn’t going to go and was feeling great. She told me to get in the car and that I was going to go. I wanted to fight her but didn’t.

When the ultrasound tech began the test, he was somewhat talkative, but he began to stop talking as he calculated and measured pockets of fluid inside my womb. When he began to act funny, I began to pay closer attention to the screen to see if I could see my baby’s heart beating and movement. I asked if the baby was okay. He answered that he needed to be sure he had found all of the pockets of fluid and then said no more. He then got up and left the room, and a few minutes later, my doctor walked in. He told me that my baby would be born today.

My doctor went on to explain that I was no longer the better incubator; she was starving and in trouble. I had too little amniotic fluid. Our daughter, Chandler, was born that night. As soon as she was born, a team of nurses circled her tiny four-pound body and suctioned out her lungs and pounded on her chest and back with the face-side of an oxygen mask as another team member held a small tube of oxygen to her face.

As the doctor worked on me, I kept asking him if she was okay, because she was hardly making any noise. I was told Chandler had failure to thrive, and she spent the first week of her life in the neonatal intensive care. Had my friend not come and insisted I go to my appointment, Chandler would likely not have survived. I know it was heaven that intervened when I was so determined to stay home.

On Sunday, April 30, 2006, some fourteen years after my profound healing, I was roused from the half-sleep state I was in by the phone ringing. It was my mother. She asked how I was doing and then simply stated, Pete is dead!

I was completely shocked and shaken. She explained that he had been walking back to his home from my grandfather’s home after visiting with him. Pete had just passed through the gate into his yard and started to have some trouble breathing and then folded slowly and gently to the ground on his knees and then laid down and closed his eyes, never to open them again.

I was absolutely stunned by this news! He hadn’t even been ill! Slowly, I became overcome with emotion as thoughts were born and realizations comprehended. One of my greatest foes was gone! The man who was responsible for years of self-doubt, a feeling of being unlovable, the inability to trust, extreme anger, panic attacks, anorexia, years of counseling, a very rocky marriage at times, the near death of two of my babies during stressed anorexic pregnancies, being driven from my homeland where my family roots extended for over a hundred years was gone! My heart and head were pounding! Peace then came as I realized there was nothing to fear any longer; Pete had been taken.

And then a new realization overwhelmed me. Pete was taken from this earth in such a merciful and gentle way, and it was on the Sabbath, the Lord’s own day! He was taken in a way that I have prayed I would leave this earth. Not four or five weeks previous to Pete’s death, a dear friend had been taken in the very same way. He was a man of God and lived in such a way that he blessed everyone he came in contact with. He was a religious professor on a college campus and influenced, for good, the lives of probably thousands.

He was one of the few men I loved and trusted. He had given me a blessing one time, and I have seen the promises he spoke to me that day come to fruition many times in my life. He was only fifty-seven years old at the time of his death. He and his wife had been at the gym, working out. They had walked together to the locker room area and had separated to change with the plan to meet in the lobby when they were done. He walked into the locker room and folded to the ground and died. My thoughts about this man’s passing were, Oh, how the Lord loved him. Of course, he would be taken in such a swift and gentle way! He was taken home exactly as I thought he should be taken; he had been blessed for his goodness.

A new feeling of humility flooded me as I recognized the comparison in the way these two children of God were taken home. I felt chastised as I was given the understanding of and felt the feeling of the immense love that my Heavenly Father felt for Pete; the Lord’s amazing grace had been given to him. I saw in my mind’s eye how Pete was taken into the Lord’s arms as a child who had been bruised and broken would be, held and enveloped in the arms of a loving parent, to receive the love and comfort only a parent could give.

My parents prepared to leave and travel the thirteen hours to be with my mother’s sister and go to the funeral. I felt a little angry and betrayed that they would make such a great effort to be with that family when I had never heard a word from any of them concerning my abuse since that day I left my home for southern California sixteen years before.

On the day they left, I was working alone in the woodshop beside our home. All of a sudden, I was filled with an incredible joy, love, and warmth that spread throughout my body. My feet felt as though they weren’t even touching the ground. In my mind, I was being told that the love that I was feeling was not the love of God in general, but it was the love that the Lord had for Pete, and Pete was sharing some of that love with me.

I was also shown that Pete wanted to be one to look after me and my most cherished possessions, my children. I could feel that he was excited to do this, and there was pure love coming from his willingness to serve me; there was nothing evil or misguided in any way. I couldn’t help but feel gratitude that he was sharing some of the profound love that he was receiving from our Heavenly Father. The hate that I had felt for Pete had been gone for years, but to say that I had any feelings for him at all? I did not! Now though, I was filled with love for him. I could feel he was my friend.

My Heavenly Father bridged this huge gap for me through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and I felt that. The love I had felt in that moment was more filling and more overwhelming, so absolutely Godlike that it far exceeded the hate that had filled me and made me so physically and mentally ill for all those years before. I felt humbled again.

On Saturday morning, the day of Pete’s funeral, as I was coming awake, I heard the words Douglas S. Petersen being called out as though he were being called forward or something. In that moment, I wondered to myself what his middle initial stood for, and I made the guess, Stanley?

Immediately, I was answered, No, Douglas Stanford Peterson, and I felt Pete near me again. I was fully awake then and was anxious to ask my mom what his middle name was. It was two days later that I was finally able to ask my mother what Pete’s name was. My mom answered, Douglas Stanford Petersen.

If I might borrow words from the October 2009 Conference by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency:

Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely.

He loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God’s love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked.

What this means is that, regardless of our current state, there is hope for us. No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us.

There were many years I wondered and was distressed about why a bishop or stake president would feel prompted to call a person to serve in a calling but who was living so unworthily to fulfill that important work. I never questioned whether or not they were inspired to call the person, but why would the Lord choose someone unworthy?

One day, as I was talking to one of my bishops about this, he explained to me that each time a person is called into the office to be presented with a calling, whether they are asked outright or not if they are worthy to take the calling, it is an opportunity that the Lord is giving that individual to tell their leader that they are not worthy and that there are some things they need to clear up first.

If that individual chooses to not take advantage of that opportunity, they are proving themselves herewith, whether they will choose God or they will choose Satan. The church leader may have even wanted to choose someone else for that calling but were told by the spirit to choose the unworthy person instead, the bishop or stake president being completely unaware of the reasoning of the spirit. The Lord loves his children so much that he provides opportunities to confess our mistakes and make them right, even through the experience of being extended a call to serve.

There were two bishops who made pivotal changes in my healing experience. When I first began to experience the worst of