I shifted my weight on the pew and sighed as the sacrament meeting speaker stood to begin his talk. Seven months pregnant, I was swollen and sore, big-bellied, and exhausted from the constant demands of my five young children who were crawling on and off my nearly-nonexistent lap, whispering (or not) in my ear, and requesting backrubs and water breaks.

I wasn’t sure I could last the remaining fifteen minutes of the meeting, let alone the final months of the pregnancy.

I nearly let out an audible groan when the speaker launched into his topic — pioneers. The last thing I wanted to hear was heroic tales of handcarts and amputations; of babies born in wagons, then buried trailside days later; of mothers who kept walking resolutely to Zion no matter what they had to leave behind. I could barely drag myself from my living room to my kitchen.

I closed my eyes and drifted into half-sleep as the speaker droned on, only to be jolted upright by my toddler’s stray elbow jamming into my abdomen. The baby inside began to kick in response, pummeling my bladder and ribs as he somersaulted in his watery nest.

I bit my lip trying not to cry or scream, as waves of frustration broke over me. It’s too much, I thought. All these kids. Whining and poking and pushing and wanting and needing, their words and hands and feet chipping away at me from without and within. I can’t stand this one more day, one more hour.    

It’s horribly cliché to claim that at that very moment, the speaker said the very words I needed to hear. But that’s exactly what happened. He was reading the story of the Sweetwater crossing, the day that grown men and women sat down and cried on the banks of the half-frozen river because their strength was utterly spent, the day that three young men carried dozens of people through the chunks of ice and onto the continuing path west that waited on the opposite bank.

And as those words penetrated the hazy fatigue that enveloped me, the Spirit spoke. Not with words, but with a deep impression that I roughly translate here: “Your sacrifice is like unto theirs.”

I sensed within myself the chasm that separates the premortal spirit world from the earth, and how there were spirits waiting on that bank needing to cross to the other side. And how I was carrying them, one at a time, to the opposite bank, so that they could continue along the path to Zion.

Paul’s words sprang to my mind, words that had burned into me years before at the start of my fourth pregnancy, when I was wondering how I would ever manage another baby.
 
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service (Romans 12:1).

Present your body as a living sacrifice. Sacrifice: the word comes from the Latin sancire, meaning to make sacred. That’s exactly what I was doing: offering my very flesh and blood to God, to meet his purposes, to fulfill the desires for children he had planted within me.

All the pain and discomfort and difficulty, I suddenly understood, was having a sanctifying effect. It sure doesn’t seem that way, I thought as I shifted my ample weight on the pew and rearranged the various limbs of my children. I didn’t feel sacred; I felt bloated, achy, irritable — even desperate. And this little burst of revelation did nothing to ease my physical and emotional distress. But even so, I knew it was true: as a result of my bodily sacrifice, I was becoming more holy.        

In the months and weeks that followed, I returned to this thought again and again, each time gaining deeper awareness of the significance of my labors. By using my body’s capabilities to build up the kingdom of God, I was consecrating myself, my time and energy and desire, in the most tangible, intimate way imaginable.

The awareness didn’t take away the sciatic pain or the killer heartburn or the bone-deep fatigue. But when the baby was born, I was keenly aware that I had ushered him across the gulf that only a woman could navigate. My husband quipped, just as he had at the end of each of my childbirths, that he was glad he wasn’t a woman. But I was glad — so glad.

And then, a year later, I had a miscarriage.

It was my first. Amazingly, I had completed six pregnancies without such incident, but my number was finally up. I was only six weeks along when the spotting began, followed by heavy bleeding, and finally, the passing of the tiny forming body.

Afterward I grappled with many difficult feelings — grief, anger, longing. Sure, I had only been pregnant for a few weeks, but I had already invested great physical, emotional, and spiritual energy in this new life. And for what? Some women receive revelation that the life lost will be resurrected, that the forming child will be part of her eternal family. But I had received no such reassurance. I felt like the whole experience was a bitter waste.

A few weeks later, I spoke with a close friend of mine who had just suffered her second miscarriage. I confided my sense of emptiness and futility. But as I continued to speak, I heard surprising words coming from my mouth.

“It wasn’t a waste,” I said. “It wasn’t a waste.” I wasn’t quite sure what I meant. I did not feel any more certain than I had before that the partially formed body I had passed would someday live again. Nor was I referring to the personal gain of knowledge and experience that comes from our trials. Rather, I knew that somehow, my loss counted. God knew what had happened, he grieved with me. And in some inexplicable way, my loss would contribute to his work and his glory, as well as my personal holiness.

I felt better after that, even though it still took more time to recover, both physically and emotionally. But it was easier to accept my loss with the assurance that it hadn’t been in vain. I became convinced that when women offer their bodies as vehicles for new life, they are consecrating themselves to God’s purposes, and God honors this offering, whether or not it results in live birth.

I sensed that this is especially true when we offer ourselves consciously, purposefully, to God. And I began to think about how this is true for women in a variety of circumstances:  women who try and try, but are unable to conceive; women who subject themselves to the rigors of adopting a child; women who remain single in this lifetime, who must forego maternity as well as intimacy on a number of levels.

I came to this conclusion: Every faithful Latter-day Saint woman consecrates her body as a living sacrifice. Whether our particular burden is fullness or emptiness, each of us is pushing forward against the river current of the world with our eyes on the kingdom of God.

Kathryn Lynard Soper is editor-in-chief of Segullah, a literary journal by and for LDS women, and editor of Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives (Woodbine House, 2007). Her memoir about mothering a child with Down syndrome,  The Year My Son and I Were Born, will be released by the Globe Pequot Press in March, 2009. Kathryn lives with her husband Reed and their seven children in the mountain west.