No toil nor labor fear

Richard and Bennett at our Ward Pioneer Day Picnic

Labor with my first was a foreign experience.  I had been told by countless women who had afore trod the path of childbirth that it would be miraculous.  They used words such as natural and innate to describe the process.  Later I would use other, less favorable words to describe it.

With the impending arrival of my second, I was afraid.  I spent most evenings falling asleep to doubts.  I took measures to mentally prepare myself, including teaching myself relaxation and visualization techniques.  Eight days before Ben arrived, our Sunday School lesson was on the power of Christ's atonement.  Using parallels of physical suffering to inform discussions of spiritual death and sin have always been especially salient for me, one who generally shrinks at physical trial.  And this day was not different.  With the ever-present remembrance of the toils of labor fresh on my mind, the idea that spiritual anguish without the Savior's atonement could be infinitely worse hit me with renewed force.

Before Ben's birth, I prayed.  Richard gave me a blessing.  My family fasted.  And I was blessed with an experience that was almost peaceful in its progression.  It was labor, to be sure, but I did not feel taken over this time.  Instead I felt present and able.

I wonder at times what it would have been like to travel across the Midwestern plains with my family and our belongings in a handcart.  Frankly, the idea of driving West in our air conditioned van with shocks and hotel stops sounds a bit daunting.  Last night, we took the family on a trek to a major league baseball game, and the distance from the parking lot to the stadium was a challenge for my ripe-with-child frame, holding hands with my slow-trodding children.  What would it have been like to bear the often-too-hot and then-too-cold weather and the physical toil all while caring for young children on a journey that lasted months?

The fam at the Brewers game

On Monday, Richard prepared a Family Home Evening lesson on pioneers and facing our challenges today with courage and perseverance.  A talk by David A. Bednar came to mind that Richard and I studied from the Ensign last April.  In this talk, he testified that "the enabling power of the Atonement strengthens us to do and be good and to serve beyond our own individual desire and natural capacity."  Because of the atonement, not only am I able to repent of sin, but I am able to become more than I could alone.  I am enabled to do things bigger than me.  So, when faced with a challenge that, alone, I would not be able to meet, the Savior's atonement makes me more and I am endowed with power to succeed.  This is an awe-inspiring and hopeful reality.

As it is August, the month we will welcome our third, I feel emboldened and grateful.  As my pioneer ancestors of old, I do not fear this physical toil, for the blessings of family and of becoming are too great.

More on the matter from Jeffrey R. Holland here.