Our Father’s Glorious Plan

The world sees birth and death as the beginning and the end but we know that they are both just milestones on our eternal journey.

The world sees birth and death as the beginning and the end. But because of God’s holy plan, we know that birth and death are actually just milestones on our journey to eternal life with our Heavenly Father. They are essential parts of our Father’s plan—sacred moments when mortality and heaven intersect. Today, reflecting on what I have learned from observing birth and death through my years of medical practice and Church service, I want to testify of our Father’s glorious plan.

Because Heavenly Father loves us, He wants us to have the greatest gift He can give, the gift of eternal life. He could not simply give us this gift; we had to receive it by choosing Him and His ways. This required that we leave His presence and begin a wonderful and challenging journey of faith, growth, and becoming. The journey our Father prepared for us is called the plan of salvation or the plan of happiness.

In a grand premortal council, our Father told us about His plan. When we understood it, we were so happy that we shouted for joy, and “the morning stars sang together.”

That plan is built upon three grand pillars: the pillars of eternity.

The first pillar is the Creation of the earth, the setting for our mortal journey.

The second pillar is the Fall of our first earthly parents, Adam and Eve. Because of the Fall, some marvelous things were given to us. We were able to be born and receive a physical body.

…

Knowing that we would not always choose well—or in other words, sin—Father gave us the third pillar: the Savior Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Through His suffering, Christ paid the price for both physical death and sin.

I testify that Christ did indeed rise from the tomb. But to rise from that tomb, He first had to die. And so must we.

When we die, our spirits leave our bodies, and we go to the next stage of our journey, the spirit world. It is a place of learning, repentance, forgiveness, and becoming where we await the Resurrection.

On some future great day, everyone who has ever been born will rise from the tomb. Our spirits and our physical bodies will be reunited in their perfect form. Everyone will be resurrected, “both old and young, … both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous,” and “every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame.”

After the Resurrection we will have the supreme blessing of being judged by our Savior, who said:

“I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works.

“And it shall come to pass, that whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled; and if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world.”

And then, through Christ and His Atonement, all who choose to follow Him through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end will find that their journey’s end is to receive “their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.” They will return to their Father’s presence to live with Him forever. May we choose well.