"That Imperial Palace Whence [We] Came"

Sorry for the lag round these parts!  Sometimes you just have to drop the ball, you know??

A couple of months ago, we had friends over for dinner.  They were fairly new acquaintances and so we spent a few minutes asking typical get-to-know-you questions.  After, "and where are you from?" was exchanged a few times, my four year old daughter tilted her head thoughtfully to the side and asked her dad, "Where am I from?"

Heaven, I answered in my heart.

And I really believe that.  I believe that each of us - every man and woman on the earth - are spirit sons and daughters of God and that we lived with Him, our Heavenly Father, before we came to earth.  I've been told that other organized faiths generally don't espouse that belief.  But it's a belief that seems so natural to me.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:*

William Wordsworth's words are familiar to most of us, aren't they? 

Earth...the homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.*

That "imperial palace," that "mighty home," (I love that Charlotte Bronte phrase from Jane Eyre).

But why discuss premortality at all?  Well, I think Wordsworth is right:

[These] shadowy recollections, (or, better, these revealed truths!)
...be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;*

Isn't that true?  Knowledge of our premortal existence with God totally illuminates our understanding of earth life.  Latter-day Saint doctrine teaches that our earthly experience was established by God, our Father, as a critical, temporary piece of our eternal, long-term development.  Makes sense doesn't it?  Aren't growth and development what all good parents are preoccupied with?  I like this description, that: "just as most of us leave our home and parents when we grow up, God knew [we] needed to do the same. He knew [we] couldn’t progress unless [we] left for a while. So he allowed [us] to come to earth to experience the joy—as well as pain—of a physical body."

I was talking with a friend this weekend about some significant trails and we both took comfort in the knowledge that experiencing pain is one of the primary reasons Heavenly Father sent us to earth.  When emotional and physical burdens feel heavy,  acknowledging "this is why I"m here," always, always, always gives me courage and hope. 

I love Elder Maxwell's words:  "Enoch, to whom the Lord revealed so much, praised God amid His vast creations, exclaiming reassuringly, 'Yet thou art there' (Moses 7:30; see also Jer. 10:12).  This same special assurance can see each of us through all the seasons and circumstances of our lives. A universal God is actually involved with our small, individual universes of experience! In the midst of His vast dominions, yet He numbers us, knows us, and loves us perfectly (see Moses 1:35; John 10:14).
...[But] even though [Enoch] knew he had been called personally by a personal God, [he] wrestled with feelings of personal inadequacy (see Moses 6:31). Enoch also wept over the human condition, but he was told, 'Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look' (Moses 7:44). If Enoch had not looked and been spiritually informed, he would have seen the human condition in isolation from the grand reality. If God were not there, Enoch’s 'Why?' would have become an unanswered scream of despair!"

But we need not despair.  Because our lives "didn’t begin at birth and...won’t end at death" (mormon.org).  We need not despair, because we can view human suffering in connection with Heavenly Father's eternal plan of happiness.  We need not despair, because our Father sent His Son to make our happiness and our development and our eternal salvation possible, ensuring that,

Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.*
And not only "sight of" - but hope to return  (Ecc. 12: 7).


*Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, William Wordsworth