Behold your babies
Thank you lil James <3
This week I was reading the part in the Book of Mormon when the Resurrected Jesus is with people in the Americas. Specifically, chapter seventeen. This is when Jesus heals everyone of everything and then asks that all the “little children” be brought close to Him.
I’d always pictured this moment to be the Primary-age children walking up to surround Jesus. But this time I noticed a verse says, “so they brought their little children and set them down upon the ground round about him.” That made me think—were the children small enough that they had to be carried and then carefully set down?
Were babies brought to Jesus?
I guess it doesn’t really matter, nor do we really know, whether the “little children” were Primary kids or babies. But I get a different feeling in my chest picturing a kneeling Jesus surrounded by a circle of chubby infants. I feel even more tenderness. Even more love.
Once all the babies are brought, Jesus tells the parents to kneel. Jesus also kneels and prays collectively for the babies. He weeps over them. Then he takes the babies one at a time and blesses them, prays for them. I imagine He hugs their soft, squishy little bodies. Kisses their cheeks and maybe smells their sweet heads. Then he weeps again. And then he says something that, for the first time, stood out to me:
“And he spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones.”
Behold your babies.
Behold means to gaze upon something—often something impressive, remarkable, or significant. It implies looking with intense attention, awe, or admiration rather than just a casual glance. To behold means to look deeply, recognizing goodness and potential and need.
While reading and thinking about that, I could feel Heavenly Father not just telling me to behold my baby, He was helping me to. Because when you really see a baby—whether your own or someone elses—they unblind you to see what is good and beautiful. You see purity and potential. And you feel more love than anything else in the world could make you feel. You sense that there is more to all of us than just our lives on earth. You know so clearly that every single person needed to come to earth and every single person is so important.
Beholding baby James has helped Adam and I better behold the Savior. We’ve both started praying more since he was born. It’s something that just naturally happened. I’ve read the scriptures more consistently; I’ve just wanted to. Adam and I are more grateful for each other and feel closer. I once heard babies described as “luminous bundles of grace.” I love that and feel more like giving and receiving grace these days.
In the first 24 hours after James was born, Adam and I talked about how we felt almost like we’d been baptized. James’s purity shined out like rays of sunshine, wiping us clean and leaving us wanting more of what matters and less of what doesn’t.
Having a baby has also led me to appreciate much more the Savior’s promise to help us and heal us. I’ve needed a lot of help and a lot of healing the past few months. More than I ever have before.
The world behold is used in another significant verse of scripture. After Pontius Pilate interrogates and scourges Jesus, he brings Him before the angry mob and says. “I bring him forth to you that ye may know that I find no fault in him. … Behold the man!”
Those in the angry crowd that day did not behold Jesus. They didn’t see Him for who he really was. But I believe that as we truly behold Jesus, our lives are much, much better. Elder Uchtdorf described what happens when we “behold” the Savior:
“Those who find a way to truly behold the Man find the doorway to life’s greatest joys and the balm to life’s most demanding despairs.
So, when you are encompassed by sorrows and grief, behold the Man.
When you feel lost or forgotten, behold the Man.
When you are despairing, deserted, doubting, damaged, or defeated, behold the Man.
He will comfort you.
He will heal you and give meaning to your journey. He will pour out His Spirit and fill your heart with exceeding joy.
He gives “power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.”
When we truly behold the Man, we learn of Him and seek to align our lives with Him. We repent and strive to refine our natures and daily grow a little closer to Him. We trust Him. We show our love for Him by keeping His commandments and by living up to our sacred covenants.
In other words, we become His disciples.
His refining light saturates our souls. His grace uplifts us. Our burdens are lightened, our peace deepened. When we truly behold the Man, we have the promise of a blessed future that inspires and upholds us through the bends and bumps in life’s journey. Looking back, we will recognize that there is a divine pattern, that the dots really connect.”
I am so grateful to get to be a mother. I have a testimony that God’s perfect plan centers on us living as families. I am grateful for how beholding my baby helps me better behold the Savior.
