Several years ago, my son had just turned one year old and my husband started a new career. He would have to leave us for four months and travel about 10 hours away to do vigorous training for his new profession. I remember the day we said goodbye. My son had no idea what was happening, but we did. We embraced and sobbed together as we had never been apart for so long in almost ten years of marriage. We knew that this would be difficult for each of us, and the hardest part would be worrying about the other whom we would not be able to support each other in any way except a phone call every night.

At one point, sometime after the first month, I had been put on an antibiotic to help with a sinus infection. I’m not even really certain that I had a sinus infection, but the medication was prescribed anyway.

I took the medication in the evening before bed and not long afterwards, I began feeling a little off. I remember my body feeling really restless and uncomfortable. I couldn’t focus on tv or a book because the sensation was so distracting. I remember struggling with this for hours not being able to fall asleep.

I’m not really sure when because it seemed like hallucinations instead of dreams, but I fell into a very disturbed sleep. I dreamt that I went to the bathroom and caught my reflection to find my face melting off in large drips into the sink. Yet, when I looked into the sink to find my face, the sink was empty. In another dream, there was a storm and I dreamt that a large tree had fallen through the middle of the house blocking off the stairwell. It fell in such a way that it kept me from being able to reach my son’s bedroom and I was hysterical trying to figure out how to get to him. He was crying for me. I had come up with all sorts of plans to get to my son and rescue him only to wake up and realize it was another terrible dream.

This was the longest night of my life. Dream after dream. I’m not even really sure if any of these moments actually happened, or if they were just dreams. In all of this horror, there was one moment of peace that I wanted to share with you today.

I had this one moment of respite, I thought it was a dream, but now I’m honestly not sure. I was in my bed and just so frightened and wishing it would all stop. I didn’t understand what was going on. All of the sudden, my husband was standing there in the doorway to our room. I saw him and began to sob! How did he know to come home? How could he know that I needed him so badly? He came over, sat beside me and pulled me into a loving embrace as I sobbed. I can still feel that embrace. It brought me so much peace at a time that I felt completely alone and terrified.

There was no husband there. I’m not really sure who was there with me, but there was most definitely someone there. My husband had no idea that I was struggling, he was still 10 hours away enduring his own trial at that time.

Why am I sharing this tender moment with you? I feel very strongly today that someone needs to know that Jesus Christ is there with you in your moment of hardship. I’m not sure that we will all notice or understand these tender mercies, I don’t think that I really understood that this was a tender mercy until last year. The memory is so vivid, the embrace so tangible.

Angels are around us and they tend to us frequently. Jesus Christ is there always, but he is most definitely there when we are suffering in our own Gethsemane with Him. He knows just how much strength we need to get through these experiences in our lives.

In the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith has compiled the visions and revelations given to him by Jesus Christ. In Doctrine and Covenants, Section 19 we hear from Jesus Christ himself about how difficult it was to endure His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Doctrine and Covenants 19:16-18

“For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent.

But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit–and would that I might not drink the bitter cup and shrink—”

This is Jesus Christ Himself telling us how He felt physically and spiritually in the Garden of Gethsemane that night. That night He felt all of the pains, sorrows, heartaches, loneliness, afflictions, and hurts of every kind. He knew just how much I needed Heavenly comfort on that night in my room. Since that time, I had assumed this had been a dream.

In the last year, I have come to realize that Heaven is much closer than we think and Heavenly Beings are all around us. I know that night, I was comforted by someone that wasn’t my husband. I am so grateful for that embrace. It gave me the peace I needed so desperately to feel in my internal storm that I was being tossed from one nightmare to another.

Can you think back to any experiences where there were protections in place that could not be understood by logic? Think on those experiences closely. Really pray to have “eyes to see” and you will be given that ability to see the miracle.