Heavenly Mother is Worried Sick

There is a dead end near my house that my father likes to reminisce about. When we drive by it, he recalls with fondness the many hours he slept there.

When I was a teenager, I had a curfew. Since I considered a curfew more of a suggestion, rather than a rule, I disobeyed a lot. I mean, a lot. And not by five or then minutes. I’m talking hours.

The way my dad tells the story, at the two-hours-late mark, my mom would wake him and tell him to get in the car and drive around until he found my body. She told him to start at Del Taco. (Obviously.)

My dad would then drive approximately twenty seconds, park the car at the neighborhood's dead end, recline his seat, and snooze until his phone rang.

“Honey, he’s home,” my mom would say.

“Oh good. I was worried sick. I'm just on Main Street now – be home in a few.”

And he fell asleep for another then minutes.

• • • 

My dad was a great father. The very best. 

But my mother didn’t sleep until I was home. And when I got home, she wanted to talk. Not about my punishment—but about my night.

My favorite memory of my mom is just before Kristi and I got engaged. We were visiting my house for the all-important parental approval and decided, late one night, to go to the beach and listen to the waves crash. Three hours later, after we were done making out listening to the waves crash, we realized the keys had fallen out of my pocket and into the sand. We spent an hour searching for them, and then I made what seemed like a good decision at the time: walking home.

We arrived at 3AM. Every light was on, the garage door was up, the car was gone.

I walked in to the living room to find my mom in tears. She ran up to us both and hugged us. Then she stepped back and said "Why didn’t you call?! I am so angry with you I could scream! Let me make you some hot chocolate. DO YOU WANT SOME HOT CHOCOLATE?"

And she lit the stove to make us hot chocolate. And we talked for an hour.

• • •

I thought of these two stories as I read my church’s new essay on our Heavenly Mother. The essay talks about the foundations for our belief in a Mother in Heaven, holding equal standing with our Father in Heaven. As President Harold B. Lee once said:

“We forget that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who are even more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother [1], and that influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us when we do all we can.”

Joseph Smith, it appears, personally taught the doctrine of Heavenly Mother. And yet the revelations on Heavenly Mother seem to end with him. What we have from prophets and apostles after him rehash the same truth. 

Eliza R. Snow: “In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare; truth is reason—truth eternal tells me I’ve a mother there.

Recent Church statement: “As with many other truths of the gospel, our present knowledge about a Mother in Heaven is limited. Nevertheless, we have been given sufficient knowledge to appreciate the sacredness of this doctrine and to comprehend the divine pattern established for us as children of heavenly parents. Latter-day Saints believe that this pattern is reflected in Paul’s statement that "neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord". Post-Joseph teachings default to logic, reason, and the pattern reflected in Paul’s statement [2]. 

Gordon B. Hinckley: “Logic and reason would certainly suggest that if we have a Father in Heaven, we have a Mother in Heaven. That doctrine rests well with me.”

The doctrine “rests well” with Gordon B. Hinckley even though, “none of us can add to or diminish the glory of her of whom we have no revealed knowledge.” Ouch. President Hinckley then goes on to list quotes from the New Testament, where Jesus references only the Father in prayer, as scriptural evidence against praying to Heavenly Mother.

But wait a second. Did the Church just use the scriptures to stop the worship of a God who isn’t in the scriptures? We believe in Heavenly Mother, who is not in the scriptures, but we shouldn't pray to Her because She's not in the scriptures. Should we really not pray to a female diety simply because Jesus never made mention? [3] 

“The fact that we do not pray to our Mother in Heaven in no way belittles or denigrates her,” President Hinckley says. True—but it doesn’t help Her come alive in our hearts either [4]. 

I can’t imagine coming home late at night as a teenager and saying to my mom, “Sorry mom—I only talk to dad about my day.” That is the dissonance the Church is creating here. We believe in a Mother in Heaven, who cares for us more than our earthly mother, but we shouldn’t talk to her in prayer, because that's weird [5].

Think of how much we know about Heavenly Father—not much. When He speaks, it’s only to introduce His Son. And yet, because we speak of him in church, during family home evening, and in our prayers, our Heavenly Father is real and alive to us. Our leaders never defer to logic, reason, or the pattern found in an obscure scripture to justify their believe in Heavenly Father. 

Addressing a prayer to Heavenly Father was revolutionary and groundbreaking—a tectonic shift in our understanding of God. Because of it, we can picture Him. We seek to understand Him. Why can't we move forward by acting on the additional light given to us by Joseph Smith?

“As with many other truths of the gospel, our present knowledge about a Mother in Heaven is limited.” Is it limited because we, ourselves, limit it?

I’ve always imagined my Heavenly Parents like my real ones. And the last thing I want is for my Heavenly Mother to ask me, as she makes hot chocolate, why I never called.

---

[1] If this is the case, then I have kept my Heavenly Mother awake and worried for approximately 30 years and 7 months. I hope there’s a dead-end somewhere on Kolob for Father.

[2] As a fun side-note: biblical scholars believe Paul’s teaching of the importance of the Gentiles is the reason Luke attributed words to Jesus that he probably didn’t say.

[3] There are many saying attributed to Jesus that he probably didn’t say. Consider Mark 4:12, what Jesus says about some of the Jews—“That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” This is literally the opposite of Jesus’ mission, likely written and attributed to Him by someone wishing to spur the development of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. If things can be added, they can be removed. Also, Jesus drank wine. Just throwing it our there.  

[4] Even as I write this, Microsoft Word thinks “Her” shouldn’t be capitalized—there’s a blue squiggly line under it. But it has no issue capitalizing “Him” mid-sentence. Come on, Bill!

[5] Praying to a woman isn't that weird. See Catholicism.