Within two weeks of our marriage I was expecting our first baby.  We lived in San Diego and my new husband was looking for work.  Neil got a call from a friend in Logan, Utah asking that he come and help him start a business selling sports equipment.  We prayed and felt the Lord’s direction in this matter.  We packed up and left our families behind.  It was difficult.  We loved our family, we were newly married and nothing was guaranteed.  But we were certain there was a purpose to the move.  Our understanding insisted that it was to help start and grow with a business.  We were right and we were wrong.

The times are hard and the days long.  There is no money to be found.  Even the few cents for a postage payment is elusive.  We eat peaches throughout the day and a can of soup at night.  Once I tried to make a bouillon gravy for our tiny meal of  instant potatoes.  I’m so tired these days.  Too much time is spent asleep to avoid weakness.  My young babe is growing within me.  It is a new and totally different experience to be with child.

Neil works so hard as he labors to provide.  Money is meager and slow to arrive and so much time is spent working with too little return.  But my husband has faith.  Faith brings miracles and we have all that we need.

We kneel together each morning and night.  “Dear Father, We are grateful for our love, for our marriage, for our baby.  Bless us that we may serve thee.  Help us to pay our debts.  Please, keep us safe and unharmed...”  We both have faith and we strengthen each other.  We have the Lord’s promise that we will never be burdened with more than we can carry.  Often though, the load is tremendous so that we might be tested and in overcoming be strengthened.

It’s hard for Neil to leave my side in the mornings to face a cold day without promise.  Sometimes it is hard for me to let him go because I feel I need his presence more than the veiled possibilities his work might give us. But we hold each other and kiss and he leaves while I prepare our home for his return.

One night we held each other and cried.  My easy-going and confident husband when caught in a spirit of despair and disappointment is a heart-rending experience.  But we spoke of our blessings and our inseparable closeness and the trust we had developed for each other.  These are our strengths for this moment of struggle.

Mostly though, we are cheerful and excited.  Our new life together fills us with the joy of God.  The times are hard but our eternity is bright.  The days are long but our love reaches beyond them.  Our faith is stronger, our understanding is deeper, and our prayers answered.  “Dearest Father, bless us that we will always remember the lesson of these days.  Help us continue to keep the pressures of temporal existence from clouding our love.  We have learned that all we really are, is shown by our measure of faith.”

Cherie Logan
1978

I was ready for that answer and was thrilled.  I loved living in Logan but over the previous two weeks my heart had been whispering that our time there was over.  Neil, on the other hand, struggled with the answer.  He knew it was right and best but had he failed?  Why had the direction been so strong in sending us to Utah?  Were we, was he, wrong in his understanding the impression to move?

We returned to San Diego and Neil found paying work.  We established our home close to family and long-time friends.  A few months later our first baby was born but not into my arms.  He was only six weeks premature but in 1979 that was still a dangerous age.  He lived 8 ½ weeks in the hospital.  Then even though my arms could not greet him in life they were able to bid him farewell.  He died as I held him, as Neil held me.

Finally the understanding of inspired direction settled upon us.  We thought we were sent to Utah for work.  We thought we returned to San Diego because we failed in that work.  Instead it was a gentle plan.  We went to Utah so that we could have those few months of relying on each other during a small time of struggle.  So we could build and strengthen our new marriage.  We were sent back to San Diego so that we could be among our precious family when the grief of returning our son hit us.

Only a small percentage of marriages survive the death of a child without some sort of a distance spreading between the couple.  Ours not only survived but we were bound together deeper than before.  I am convinced that it was the combination of sending us away and bringing us back added to the faith we already held concerning eternal family ties that made the difference.

The lesson of revelation has stayed with us over the years.  We have learned to act on spiritual direction and we try to understand the reasoning and yet there is a reserve within us that whispers, “The Why might be very different then you think.”