Parables of Grief
The Parables of Grief podcast is for anyone who has lost a spouse. We discuss the common everyday lessons learned in this journey of suffering when your best friend and confidant is dead. We address the loneliness, the secondary losses, and the hope that lies ahead on this path. We look to the Savior as the master healer in every episode, and we focus on the light he brings to our darkest hours. We cling to His promises, especially his promise that, “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you,” which is found in John 14:18.
Parables of Grief
Parables of Grief--Living Up to Your Spiritual Privileges in Times of Profound Loss
When tragedy strikes, our understanding of God's protection undergoes a profound metamorphosis. Just as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, grief can change us into something entirely new—if we allow it. Today, Mama Bear Wendy explores what it means to live up to our spiritual privileges during times of profound loss.
The death of a spouse creates a defining moment that challenges our most fundamental beliefs. After losing her husband, Wendy's prayers transformed from what she calls a "shopping list" of requests to something deeper: prayers seeking alignment with God's will. This shift represents a spiritual awakening that often accompanies deep grief, where we stop bargaining with the universe and start seeking understanding.
Drawing inspiration from Emma Smith's remarkable self-written blessing, Wendy examines how this valiant woman—who experienced multiple child losses and persecution—didn't ask for protection from suffering when given the chance to write her own blessing. Instead, Emma sought wisdom, self-knowledge, and discernment. This historical example beautifully illustrates how living up to our spiritual privileges isn't about escaping hardship but developing the spiritual gifts to navigate it with grace.
For widows especially, unique spiritual opportunities exist. There's a special connection through the veil that allows continued relationship with departed spouses who "have not abandoned their sacred callings" to family. By recognizing and actively engaging with these privileges—through temple service, patriarchal blessing study, and consistent spiritual practices even in difficult circumstances—we can experience profound support and healing. Join Mama Bear Wendy as she offers hope and practical wisdom for those walking the challenging path of grief.
If you would like more grief support please see my website at Mamabearwendy.com for upcoming grief groups and 1:1 opportunities.
Although your experience and path will be unique, there is hope ahead in this path and you are not alone. I can see your pain and we will walk this road together. Here is a big bear hug from Mama Bear Wendy, your fierce support in the journey of grief, until next time.
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"Wendy has a beautiful way of sitting in the deep end of the ocean with you. Her presence alone is healing. She meets you where you’re at and doesn’t push you any further than where you want to go. She gently nudges you into new places with new perspectives. She is highly intuitive, sensitive and compassionate. She brings a depth to the table you rarely see. Her experiences have given her an extraordinary level of understanding and a safe place to walk to as she is a safe harbor fill of strength and integrity. She is raw and real and beautifully vulnerable and she is exceptional at conveying the words that are hard to find. She is a rare one." Christi D.
Hello friends, this is the Parables of Grief podcast and this is your host, Mama Bear Wendy, I'm here to share some love and light with you on your journey through grief and loss. I hope, as our healing paths connect for the next few minutes, we can walk together and find strength for the road ahead. One scientist suggests that what the grieving need most is to have others witness our pain and help us not feel so alone. I hope in our time together you will find the companionship and understanding that you need. The intention of this podcast is to use parables of grief to find the Savior and His promised healing in the daily and commonplace, to see how we are truly never alone and to find, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the Savior by our side, even if we didn't recognize him at first, because he showed up in unexpected and common ways. Also, there is much coming soon to help with your journey. The Parables of Grief book will be coming out by Christmas of 2025, and there are opportunities to join me in online grief groups and one-on-one companion sessions. Please check out my website at momadbearwendycom for more information.
Speaker 1:Good morning, my friends. Today's episode is going to be about privileges and we are going to discuss several ideas that I have, starting out with the idea of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but first I wanted to just make sure that I invited you. We are going to start a second Five Pillars of Grief internet Facebook group and on my website there is a form you can fill out to be included in that. So that again is at wwwmamabearwendycom and just go to the place that says groups and fill out the form there and that will get you in our next class. It does start April 4th.
Speaker 1:So, to start off with, we are going to start out with two different quotes. The first one is from our dear prophet, president Russell M Nelson, and he said women have the right to draw liberally upon the Savior's power to help their families and others they love. The heavens are just as open to women who are endowed with God's power flowing from their priesthood covenants as they are to men who bear the priesthood, and this is from Spiritual Treasures, october 2019. President Oaks also stated we are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their church callings, but what other authority can it be? Whoever exercises priesthood authority should forget about their rights and concentrate on their responsibilities and this is the keys and authority of the priesthood April 2014.
Speaker 1:So, to begin with, we're going to talk about something that our family has done for many years. We have gotten a kit with live caterpillars in it. They are painted lady caterpillars and when they come they are about a centimeter big. They are dormant and as soon as you bring them into the light, they start getting active. They are on a bed of food that they eat, so you do nothing for them except watch them grow and within three days they are now almost an inch big. They are huge and it is fascinating to watch them turn into chrysalises and eventually turn into butterflies.
Speaker 1:Why do we start with that story? There is so much in the story of the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly that I think applies to grief and suffering. The first part is there are significant changes that occur when we lose our spouse. We are turned into jelly. It's very crushing and broken and it is a feeling of shifting and changing and, like the caterpillar, I think we go into maybe a state of healing and rest and, hopefully, eating and sleeping. Those things kind of come with time, but they definitely were a struggle to begin with and as we grow and change and develop. I haven't done it yet, but my hope is that we are going to turn into butterflies and as we turn into butterflies we will be living up to our privileges. So our first question is what are my privileges? And our second question is how do we live up to them? What I have learned is my privileges are to ask for help when I need it.
Speaker 1:Right after my husband died, my prayers changed from being very wordy and needy and questions about getting things and protecting all the people in my life. And when my husband died, it was a shock to all that I believed, all that I believed about prayer, all that I believed about God. I believed that God would take care of our family, about God. I believed that God would take care of our family, that he would protect us from evil, that he would not let anything bad happen. And that day something really bad happened and we were not protected from evil. And that day I learned about this fallen world and that God allows bad things to happen. And what does that mean? Does that mean God is still good? Does that mean God is still protecting our family?
Speaker 1:And then I had to look at all the ways that God had prepared us and all the ways that God had been there in this horrible tragedy. The people that were there as first responders were placed there not by accident. There are so many examples of how they were perfectly suited to be there for us that day. And so then the question becomes what if God's protection doesn't look like? We thought, what if God's protection is not about protecting us from all that is fallen in this world? What if God's protection doesn't look like safety at all times? What if God's protection looks very different? And so then my prayers changed from a shopping list for lack of a better word to a prayer of alignment. My goal became a goal to align myself with the will of my Heavenly Father and to align my desires to be in line with His desires for me, desires to be in line with his desires for me.
Speaker 1:This brings up a really beautiful thing that I was introduced to this week by a dear friend. The story of Emma and Joseph has been one that fascinates me for many years. Emma is a valiant, chosen daughter and her support of Joseph through all of his trials and all of her trials. Multiple babies lost, multiple. Not protection from evil where men would come in and steal her husband and beat him and send him home for dead. Emma and Joseph's life was certainly not protected from evil in the sense that they had no experience with trauma and loss, and so my friend introduced me to this blessing that is now in the church history catalog. This is under Emma Smith Blessing 1844.
Speaker 1:The story goes that she was in a place where her husband was busy and unable to give her a priesthood blessing that she needed, and so he told her that she could write out the very best blessing that she could imagine and that he would sign it when he got home. And so when I heard this story, I thought oh, I bet she asked for safety, I bet she asked for protection, I bet she asked that no more of her children would die. And I was wrong. Emma asked for very beautiful things, and I'm going to just read you the first paragraph. First of all, that I would crave, as the richest of heaven's blessings would be wisdom for my heavenly Father bestowed daily, so that, whatever I might do or say, I could not look back at the close of the day with regret nor neglect the performance of any act that would bring a blessing. I desire the Spirit of God to know and understand myself, that I might be able to overcome whatever of tradition or nature that would not tend to my exaltation in the eternal worlds. I desire a fruitful, active mind that I might be able to comprehend the designs of God when revealed through His servants without doubting. I desire the spirit of discernment, which is one of the promised blessings of the Holy Ghost. I loved this. I loved how she focused on living up to her privileges. I loved how she focused on asking for the promised blessing she had been given already. I went to.
Speaker 1:This goes along with a conference talk where he talked about reading his patriarchal blessing and realizing that the promises in it he was not on a trajectory to receive and he would need to change things about his life to receive them and how he went about changing where he lived and his work, all kinds of things to be in line with his promised patriarchal blessing. I think sometimes we think of privileges as something we just get and that we just don't have to work for them, I suppose. But I think Emma's blessing here reminds us that we do still ask and seek and knock. I think that part of the question of how do we live up to our blessings? How do we live up to our privileges? Goes along with that, as we discover our privileges. I have a file on my Gospel Library app that is called Promises Apostolic Promises and it is fascinating to me to see how often the Brethren give us very specific things that help us know how to receive those privileges that we need.
Speaker 1:We moved to Maryland when I was pregnant with our sixth baby and it was a time of great change and shift, like the caterpillar for me. I had always lived close to family. I had a big group of support where we were and when we moved, I'm sorry and I was all alone. When I had this baby and the Relief Society president became my surrogate mother, I looked to her in everything. I told her my sorrows, I told her the overwhelming things in my life and she was a powerful, powerful witness to me of all the things that I needed to know. One of her blessings to me was I had prepared a family home evening for my family. I had, like I said, six children under the age of 11, and they were busy. It was very busy.
Speaker 1:My husband worked evenings, so he would leave our house about noon and get back about midnight because he had a two-hour commute and so I spent the witching hour. If you're not familiar with that term, that means dinner. Dinner is when everyone's hungry and ornery and tired and it is not a pretty time. Usually in most of our life my husband would get home at that time and be able to assist with witching hour, but unfortunately at this point he was working so I was alone. I was newly having a baby and my husband was gone in the evenings and as it would get dark every evening I would be so overwhelmed. This sweet Relief Society president told me that she had determined that she was promised if she would have family home evening her children would not be lost and that, no matter what happened, she was going to do family home evening. I loved her sweet testimony that what the prophets and apostles promised and the requirement for that she was willing to do no matter what. I have taken that into my own life and tried to implement it into my own life and tried to implement it.
Speaker 1:Living up to our privileges requires us to do those things that we have been given as promises In our patriarchal blessings. There are generally some caveats In the temple. There are definitely some caveats of what we have to do to live up to our privileges, and one of those things is to be more earnest in our knocking and seeking and asking. As widows, I believe we have special privileges. I believe we have a connection through the veil and I believe that we can call upon angels to assist us, especially our sweethearts. I believe that they are very near and that they are helping. They have not abandoned their sacred callings to our family or to us. They are very present and aware of our suffering and want to be available to help us. We can believe in that and by believing in that, I believe we live up to our privileges and those things can be increased in our life as we focus and open our hearts up to that.
Speaker 1:I think that's our podcast for today. If you would like more grief support, please see my website at mamabearwendycom for my upcoming five pillars of resilience group and one-on-one opportunities. Although your experience and path will be unique, there is hope ahead in this path and you are not alone. I can see your pain and we will walk this road together. Let's take a deep breath together and here is a big bear hug from Mama Bear Wendy Until next time.
