Sign up for Meridian’s Free Newsletter, please CLICK HERE
Cover image via LDSLiving.
While the topic of our Heavenly Mother is not one frequently discussed in the Church today, prophets and apostles have confirmed Her divine existence and mentioned Her divine attributes on multiple occasions.
Here are 11 times the prophets and apostles spoke of our Heavenly Mother and Her role in our lives that can bring comfort and peace.
1. President Joseph Smith
The prophet Joseph Smith spoke about our Heavenly Mother to the third Relief Society president of the Church, Zina D. Young. After losing her mother to “the most trying of circumstances,” Zina was speaking to the prophet about her intense grief and asked the question: “Will I know my mother as my mother when I get over to the Other Side?” (History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S., from November 1869 to June 1910, 16).
To which Joseph Smith responded:
“Certainly you will. More than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven” (History of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S., from November 1869 to June 1910, 16).
2. President Joseph Fielding Smith
President Joseph Fielding Smith also confirmed our Heavenly Mother’s existence and divine role:
“Latter-day Saints believe that not only have we a Father in heaven, but a mother there. Why not have a mother as well as a Father?” (Restoration of All Things, Ch. 26).
3. Elder Orson F. Whitney
Elder Orson F. Whitney shared that we can become like Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother:
“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven” (Faith Precedes the Miracle, 98).
4. President Rudger Clawson
In 1910, President Rudger Clawson wrote of the godhood women possess as a birthright from our Heavenly Mother:
“It doesn’t take from our worship of the Eternal Father, to adore our Eternal Mother, any more than it diminishes the love we bear our earthly fathers, to include our earthly mothers in our affections. . . . We honor woman when we acknowledge Godhood in her eternal prototype” (“Our Mother in Heaven,” Millennial Star 72, September 29, 1910).
5. Elder John A. Widtsoe
Elder John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve wrote of our Heavenly Mother and Her radiance:
“The glorious vision of life hereafter . . . is given radiant warmth by the thought that . . . [we have] a mother who possesses the attributes of Godhood” (“Everlasting Motherhood,” Millennial Star 90, May 10, 1928).
To read the full article on LDSLiving, click here.
