Brothers and sisters, missionaries, students, faculty—I am so humbled to be here. Aloha.
I hope I can bring to you the aloha from people in Provo who actually turn to you. I just received an invitation to an event at BYU in Provo referencing you and the temple here. You mean much more than you can know to the kingdom of God on this Earth. I am so grateful to be here.
I was a newly married 34-year-old when I first experienced Hawaii. It felt healing and nourishing to me, teeming with life. It seemed as if the Creation was taking place right before my eyes. When we returned a decade later with our children, the best way I could describe it was “magical.” Today I stand before you deeply aware that far more than magical, I stand on holy ground. This is La'ie – anciently a “City of Refuge,” chosen as the sacred gathering place for the Saints in the 1860s, just after the Restoration. Chosen by direct revelation from Prophets of God who appeared and directed this as the chosen place. It was difficult! There was not enough water. The early saints struggled to make this a livable gathering place; a struggle we could not imagine possible when we look around us today. But every time there was any question about the sacredness of this place, it was as if heaven spoke, prophesying of its future and sacred mission. Brigham Young, his counselor Heber C. Kimball, the prophet Joseph F. Smith, David O. McKay, and every other prophet since has felt the same way. This is the land chosen by God for a sacred work in His kingdom. You have been brought here to participate in that sacred work. It is that work I want to speak about today.
It was on our first visit to Hawaii, hiking on the Big Island, that I saw my first Banyan tree. It is something I will never forget. I felt reverent standing in front of this magnificent creation. We walked around its massive expanse marveling at the dozens of trunks that had formed by spreading new roots from the original branches.
I felt like I was looking at earth’s emblem of the eternal family, its sacred work described in a verse found in every book of scripture from the Old Testament to the Pearl of Great Price: “And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.” [1]
When we returned to Hawaii with our children some years ago, I stood again in awe of the magnificent Banyan tree outside of the beautiful old chapel in Honolulu. Brothers and sisters, the Banyan tree speaks to me because the plan of salvation is the story of a remarkable family.
You and I are all part of that eternal family. You are my brothers and sisters. The divine nature of our heavenly parents is carried in the composition of our spiritual bodies. Their bond of love is at the core of our beings. Through Them, we have been given the capabilities, powers, and faculties They possess, now in an undeveloped state. [2] They yearn for us to experience eternal life with them, in the fullest oneness, a oneness that is possible only as we become like them.
This is what our souls yearn for. We are not designed for self-actualized, pleasure-seeking individual autonomy. We are deeply relational beings designed for connection and belonging. In answer to these longings of the human soul, we have been given the truths laid out in the proclamation on the family. In the proclamation, we learn that the purpose of the plan of salvation, culminating in the great atoning sacrifice of the Lord, Jesus Christ, is the sacred work of family relationships, enabling us to become beings of love in the deepest form of eternal connection.
The proclamation makes a declaration that pierces through our loneliness and any sense of shortcoming, assuring every one of us of complete belonging in a family of perfect heavenly parents who are divine love itself. “All human beings, male and female, are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.” [3]
In the plan for our growth and development, our Father ordered the Creation of this magnificent earth. Its glorious culmination is man and woman, placed on the earth to create and walk together as equals, divinely designed, in the words of Elder Richard G. Scott, as a “combination of complementary capacities and characteristics.” [4] In them, we see the holy order of eternity, even the image of the Eternal God, male and female united eternally. When Adam saw Eve, he perceived in her a saving power beyond his own, Ezer Kenegdo. She saw the same in him. Each would be a source of divine strength and help to the other. [5] Like the ribs they are compared to, neither would walk ahead nor behind. Together, they would guard the very essence of life.
In the Garden of Eden, Eve and Adam made a decision they knew would bring death into the world, but it would also bring life. Family life. They would be blessed with children. That family would provide the essential setting for our physical birth and the opportunity for growth and development in the process of spiritual rebirth. [6] From the very beginning, we witness that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” [7] In the words of former General Relief Society President Julie B. Beck, “Without the family, there is no plan; no reason for mortal life.” [8]
As a social scientist, I have marveled witnessing the foundational role of loving marriages in the wellbeing of children, women, and men, as the very bedrock of society. Research consistently confirms that no other structure on earth more effectively makes possible that parents can provide the secure and stable environment of nurturing caregiving their children depend on. [9] Healthy marriage lifts men and women, bestowing on them the sacred roles of husband and father, wife and mother, increasing their happiness, mental and physical health, sense of stability, and investment in the future. [10]
As hundreds of research studies indicate, marriage helps ensure that children experience the gift of the remarkable complementarity between mothers and fathers. [11] Both a man and a woman are needed to create life, and they are designed to facilitate the nurturing of that life together. Mothers are primed to establish a bond through which the emotional communication that is essential for development can occur. Her infant is also primed to bond with her, already knowing her smell, her voice, her face. This powerful relationship appears to shape the foundations of identity, sense of wellbeing, and emotional understanding. In a complementary way, a father’s closeness to his children shapes their relational capacity, achievement, understanding of boundaries, and emotion management. A father’s closeness offers his daughters a deep experience of what protective male love feels like, strengthening her capacity for wise sexual decisions. His closeness to his sons also offers an experience with masculinity that is protective and nurturing, not driven by aggression or sexual proclivities nurturing the same capacity in his sons.
The distinct contributions of mothers and fathers confirm the proposition laid out in the proclamation: that the direct, continual, loving involvement of a married mother and a father in the home is the divinely ordained pattern for children’s development.
This reality underscores why the sacred powers of procreation are reserved for marriage. Social science painfully confirms what happens when men and women, sexual union, and children are broken apart. Perhaps the truth is no more poignantly captured by Elder Holland, “[The sexual union of man and] woman is—or certainly was ordained to be—a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything.” [12] We have seen the disruptive psychological effects of bonding sexually, sharing part without the whole, then severing what was meant to be a total obligation. Being harmed sexually is the most disruptive form of interpersonal abuse. We witness the pain from non-relational sexual involvement as others become objects for sexual satisfaction. We see what that has done to the sexualization of women, [13] and the languishing of men. [14] And we see what that fragmentation has meant to children.
Sexual union is designed to create and symbolize a union strong enough that a child’s heart can rely upon it. Its fragmentation from marriage is at the root of the number of children born outside of the safety of marriage, with all of its attendant risk. Though many of these children manage to grow up without serious problems, [15] we also know from hundreds of studies that children born to unmarried parents face increased risks in every developmental domain - mentally, physically, and emotionally. [16]
In other situations, wrongful actions from others may necessitate divorce. Making the choice to end a marital relationship that is abusive can be a courageous and beneficial decision, taking children out of a destructive environment. At the same time, division and eventual divorce are deeply painful, increasing risks as children experience an inner division. [17] Children are, after all, the embodiment of their parents’ union. For a child, there is a longing for the original intactness of their being, the loving union of the mother and father from whom they come. [18]
My husband’s parents divorced when he was six. He still describes the moment when his mother asked, “Michael, who do you want to live with?” His six-year-old heart could not respond. He grew up without religious faith, but had deep feelings for Christmas because on that day, his parents would come back together to eat breakfast and open presents, and he would feel a wholeness again.
My brothers and sisters, these are painful realities in mortality. The necessity of death brought with it the opposition that is essential for our growth. All of us will experience some deep, unfulfilled yearnings in the oneness we yearn for in family life. Some will not have the blessing of a loving marriage for a host of possible reasons - a lack of viable prospects, same-sex attraction, physical or mental impairments, fear of failure that overshadows faith, or having a marriage that ended leaving us alone with the daunting task of nurturing children. [19] Others of us will feel the deep pain of not being able to bear children. Sins, weakness, and mistakes mean that we will all experience pain in these relationships. Though we yearn for profound, deep, connection in family life, our mortal weakness brings with it the inclination to fear and protect ourselves, tempting us toward selfishness, using others, hiding, and contending, even harming those we are to love.
It is in the midst of this seeming opposition that the divine plan for our learning, growth, and redemption is powerfully revealed. Our eternal Father covenanted to send His beloved Son to be our Savior and Redeemer. Jesus Christ is the Being who brings At-one-ment to our souls and to all of our relationships. He is the Master Healer, the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer. He yearns to bless us with His love and pour out His healing grace in covenant relationship with us.
We fear that our pain and loss in being single, never married, divorced, infertile, struggling in our marriage, having suffered abuse, wrestling with questions of gender or sexuality - or any other seeming difference from the ideal - marks us as less worthy, creating feelings that we do not belong. Instead, our Redeemer, says, “Come. Share it all with me.” “I am with you.” [20] “…I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. Thou wast precious in my sight…and I have loved thee. Fear not: for I am with thee.” [21]
As a single woman I yearned for marriage and children for many years. Yet despite sincere effort, I could not seem to make that reality happen. At the time, I could not see the miraculous work the Lord was bringing about in my heart through that struggle. My unfulfilled yearnings played a sacred role in inclining my heart toward my Redeemer to seek peace and direction He alone could provide and deepen my trust in His perfect love and enabling power. Daily prayer and scripture study, and especially the words of general conference, became a lifeline of hope and direction. I felt compelled to turn to the words of my patriarchal blessing—and other priesthood blessings—to find love and direction that were personal to me from my Eternal Father.
Eventually, I did miraculously marry my beloved companion, Michael. But I found that my need to be deeply anchored in Jesus Christ only continued. I faced infertility, yearning for more children. When we were finally blessed with our two children, I felt keenly my inadequacies and weaknesses as a mother, knowing that I sometimes failed them in ways I feared would inhibit their growth. I wondered sometimes if the other children we had yearned for had run when they witnessed my struggles as a mother. I wondered how could I ever create the kind of family I desired?
As I struggled it became clear to me that I was denying the reality of my Redeemer. Yes, this is the great plan of family – the Creation provided the place for the family to live. The Fall provided the place for the family to grow. And it is the Atonement of Jesus Christ that makes possible the fullness of grace that is needed for the family to become healed, and eternally one.
In pouring out my heart to God, I found that the Lord, Jesus Christ, answers the pain and loss inherent to our mortal experience with the purest form of love, covenant, drawing closer to us, sharing our pain and weakness in the most profound form of intimacy. In that covenant relationship, His sanctifying power enters us, giving us power to do what is needed to bless our families, opening the way for us to be ever closer to Him, and ever closer to others. [22] Miraculously, through His grace and redemption, and His alone, we can become the kind of people in the kinds of relationships that define heaven.
Returning to BYU after faithfully serving a mission, Ty Mansfield, a beloved friend and colleague came face-to-face with the reality of his same-sex attraction, something he could not just push away, but seemed to be inherent to his mortality. He wrestled. What did this mean for the core dreams of his life, his relationships, his future family? What did this mean for his testimony and faith in the plan of salvation?
All that the world could offer him was a false, all-or-nothing choice captured poignantly in the words of faithful member Bennett Borden: “I can act on my feelings, be in a gay relationship, feel like I’ve got some...connection, and be out of the Church. Or I can keep my covenants, stay in the Church, and die a horrible, lonely death…” [23] It was irreconcilable. He had felt the reality of the Lord’s love for him, taking his heart from shame. But he did not know how to go forward. He could not bear to think of life without deep relationships, and he could not bear to leave the God and Church he loved. He desperately needed direction and comfort.
During a particularly difficult period, he went to general conference fasting. He describes, “As soon as the opening prayer was given, I was completely enveloped by a spiritual feeling...For nearly two hours, all the hurt, the pain, the confusion, the frustration [was] completely gone. In [its] place was a feeling of divine love I had also never experienced. As a part of [it], there was a feeling of what I perceived as pure celestial love and desire to be with a daughter of God in the most holy, connected, and uniting of ways. The world’s portrayal of love and romance seemed so shallow and “false” in comparison. With the feeling came the words: ‘Just stay with me. If you do, this is the feeling you will someday feel—and it will be a permanent part of your being.’ And then suddenly, as the end of the session approached, the feeling left. I didn’t know how I would eventually grow into that feeling as an integral part of my being, but I trusted that God would lead me there.” [24]
Ty did not know then what awaited him, including marriage and five remarkable children. But foundational to any of those miraculous gifts was the profound invitation from His Redeemer, “Just stay with me.”
Though I have not walked the journey of same-sex attraction, like some of you, I have known the deep pain of fear and unfulfilled yearnings. I too have felt God reach out to me with unspeakable love, “Jenet, just stay with me.”
That, brothers and sisters, is covenant language. It is experiencing the reality of our covenant relationship with the Living Christ. As President Russell M. Nelson has promised, “When you and I... enter that [covenant] path, we...create a relationship with God that allows Him to bless and change us... The covenant path is a path of love—that incredible hesed, that compassionate caring for and reaching out to each other…If we let God prevail in our lives, that covenant will lead us closer and closer to Him… [He will be] the most powerful influence in our lives.” [25]
Christian writer Timothy J. Keller once wrote: “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.” [26] He sees us in all that we are, and all that we are not. He sees our fears, weaknesses, sins, and unfulfilled yearnings. When we feel there is no way, He stands before us and answers us, “I am the way.” [27] We place our dreams and yearnings on the altar of His sacred sacrifice, and in covenant entrust our lives to His perfect redeeming power. And there is nothing He cannot and will not do in this great story of redeeming us, redeeming our relationships, and making eternal oneness in family possible.
We may wonder why in the great story of the family, in our yearning for oneness, we experience so much brokenness. Christian writer, Ann Voskamp, describes when her young daughter once accidentally tore the paper heart she had made. Holding it up to her mother she said, “Maybe the love gets in easier where the hearts broke open.” [28] Brothers and Sisters, what if “the deeper you know your own brokenness, the deeper you can experience your own belovedness?” [29] Our “weaknesses do not debar us from the Lord’s mercy; rather they incline God to us the more.” [30] It is not until we confront the limits of our own abilities, our powerlessness to heal and create and restore that we open ourselves up to the fulness of His grace, the source of infinite love and redeeming power.
I have come to treasure the beautiful Japanese art form, Kintsugi, where broken pottery is pieced back together using a lacquer mixed with gold or silver. In the repair, the broken seams become artwork of golden connection, and the pottery is even more valuable than before it was broken. So, our Savior, heals and mends our brokenness, pouring in His healing power, symbolized in the Holy Sacrament where we remember, and are “re-membered” by His blood and body which fill and heal us, and we are made “at-one,” glorious and beautiful in Him.
In this mortal experience of opposition, we find in Him alone the power, redemption and healing that brings oneness with Him, oneness in our family yearnings, and ultimately oneness in our eternal family. He offers us His golden lacquer of covenant relationship through which He binds up our wounds, heals our relationships, and seals us together. Will we receive that fullness of His grace by entering into covenants with Him, seeking to keep that covenant relationship strong? Will we trust the assurance of His promise that all will be made whole in Him? Will we carry the golden lacquer of His Atonement with us throughout the world gathering His children home, into temple ordinances, made possible through His church so that all may be joined together in covenant relationship with Him, sealed eternally as one? Yes, this is the great plan for the eternal family.
Our hearts are turning to the promise made to our Fathers that He will redeem, restore, and make us one through the divine unit of the family. Truly, “If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.” [31]
I marvel reading a statement from President David O. McKay about the sacred role of Brigham Young University–Hawaii regarding the eternal family, and your work in gathering His children. For what is this school being built? … “The things pertaining to God and His Kingdom…know[ing] that He lives and that He is our Father, the Father of all mankind and ruler of brothers [and what] that means toward peace, establishing peace in the world….From this school, I’ll tell you, will go men and women whose influence will be felt for good towards the establishment of peace internationally...” [32]
I bear witness that Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace, that it is His healing and uniting power that we are called to carry throughout the world in the great fulfilment of this story of a remarkable family.
Notes:
[1] Doctrine & Covenants 2:2-3
[2] Lorenzo Snow, in Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow: One of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1884), 335
[3] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.”
[4] Richard G. Scott, “The Joy of Living the Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, November 1996.
[5] See Angela Ashurst-McGee, “‘Help Meet’: Women’s Power to Serve,” Ensign, September 2020;
[6] Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “Why Marriage? Why Family?” Ensign, May 2015.
[7] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.”
[8] Julie B. Beck, “The Doctrine of the Family,” Ensign, Teaching the Doctrine of the Family, Ensign, March 2011.
[9] W. Bradford Wilcox, “The New Progressive Argument for Kids: Marriage Per Se Doesn’t Matter,” Institute for Family Studies, September, 2014. ; see also Natasha Cabrera et al., “Rebalancing: Children First,” report of AEI Brookings Working Group on Childhood in the United States, American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution, 8 February 2022.
[10] W. Bradford Wilcox and Nicholas H. Wolfinger, “Debunking the Ball and Chain Myth,” Institute for Family Studies Research Brief.
[11] Jenet Jacob Erickson, “It Takes Two: What We Learn from Social Science about the Divine Pattern of Gender Complementarity in Parenting.” BYU Studies, June, 2023.
[12] Jeffrey R. Holland, “Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments,” BYU Devotional Broadcast, January 12, 1988.
[13] Report on the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls, The American Psychological Association.
[14] Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy, 2017.
[15] AEI-Brookings Working Group on Childhood in the United States, “Rebalancing: Children First”.
[16] Kristin Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek, and Carol Emig, “Marriage from a Child’s Perspective: How does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do about it?” Child Trends Research Brief.
[17] Elizabeth Marquardt, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce, 2006.
[18] Antonio Lopez, Torn Asunder, 2017, edited by Margaret Harper McCarthy.
[19] Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “Why Marriage? Why Family?” Ensign. (May 2015): 50-53.
[20] See also, Isaiah 43:1-2
[21] See also, Isaiah 43:3-5
[22] Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail [Covenant Communications, 2021].
[23] Bennett and Becky Borden, “Why We Married in the Temple After 20 Years in Same-Sex Relationships: An Interview With Bennett & Becky Borden,” Leading Saints, December, 2021.
[24] Ty and Danielle Mansfield, “Living with Same-Sex Attraction: Our Story,” LDS Living, May 2012.
[25] Russell M. Nelson, “The Everlasting Covenant,” Liahona, October, 2022.
[26] Timothy J. Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God
[27] See also, John 14:6
[28] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way, 24.
[29] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way, 146.
[30] Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way, 83.
[31] Doctrine & Covenants 2:2-3
[32] Groundbreaking & Dedication of CCH/BYU–Hawaii