Saskia

We met Saskia at her Institute class. She is the granddaughter of one of our seminary teachers. She was bright but not feeling well. We took her home that night because she was too ill to walk to Sheriff Street and catch a bus. It is an eight block walk, nothing for a Guyanese. Two weeks later, her Branch President asked Elder Langford to go with him to the hospital to give her a blessing. We did not recognize her. Her face was swollen and red with a terrible rash. The rash was on her arms and chest. The doctors thought it might be an allergy. Her aunt was with her. Saskia’s mother died when Saskia was six and she was raised by her two grandmothers. She was living with the non-member grandmother, her mother’s mother. She was given a blessing and as the weeks went by, her grandmother reported that she was better and then not; in the hospital and then out. Two weeks ago, they diagnosed lupus but it was too late.

One wonders why a beautiful young girl would die a week before her 20th birthday. I am reminded of one of my favorite scriptures. The Lord gives the Prophet Nephi a big vision of things to come and then asks if he understands what he saw. Nephi replies, … “I know that he (God) loveth his children: nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.” (1 Nephi 11:17) We don’t know why things happen, but we do need to know that God loves each of us. He knows us by name and cares about us. The Savior suffered every one of the sufferings we go through in Gethsemane. That is more than suffering for our sins, he suffered all of it, the bloody knees, the broken hearts, the panic, the anxiety, all of it. Alma teaches “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.” (Alma 7:11 See also Isaiah 53:3-5)