“We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”
For the past 20 years, Jenet Erickson has studied, researched and taught about the deep foundational truths found in the nine paragraphs — roughly 600 words — of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.”
“I think it’s so beautiful,” Erickson said of the proclamation. For many years now, Erickson has taught a class at Brigham Young University called “The Eternal Family” that explores the principles taught in “The Family Proclamation” line by line.
As a fellow with both the Wheatley Institute and the Institute for Family Studies, Erickson has also delved deeply into the academic research and policy involving marriage and family.
“Every time I read or recite [the proclamation], I marvel at what it offers,” she said in a Church News podcast episode.
But, Erickson admitted, there was a time where, though she believed in and promoted the truths found in that prophetic document, she struggled to see herself and her situation reflected in its teachings.
“I talked about motherhood for a long time before I became a mother,” Erickson related. For many years, she yearned to be a wife and a mother, however, “I couldn’t seem to make that happen. I didn’t know exactly where I fit in a plan of marriage and motherhood if I couldn’t experience it.”
Some individuals — whether due to never marrying, divorce, infertility, broken relationships, abuse, struggling in parenthood or marriage relationships or wrestling with questions of gender or sexuality — may have a similar struggle when their experiences don’t seem to align with the principles outlined in the proclamation.
In reality, Erickson said, “The Family Proclamation” isn’t about perfect families. “It’s about redemption through Christ.”
‘Family is an eternal story’
“All human beings — male and female — are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.”
Throughout her career, Erickson said she has seen hundreds, if not thousands, of studies that uphold principles taught in the proclamation. The family is important to individuals, cultures, nations and society. And yet the proclamation and the words of modern prophets offer an expanded view, she said. The institution of the family doesn’t just matter in mortality. It matters eternally.
Family “is the reason we are — because we have a father and a mother, and their work is to enable us to grow so that we can live in the quality of relationships that they have as father and mother. So it’s like the whole plan is grounded in this reality of the family. If there weren’t the family, there would be no plan,” Erickson said, adding, “Family is an eternal story.”
“The Family Proclamation” lays out “who we are and the divine design of our heavenly parents for our growth and development.”
However, no one will have a perfect mortal family, relationship or experience, Erickson said. They will all be broken, fractured because all are subject to mortality, mistakes and sin. “But every one of us belongs to a perfect, eternal family. Every one of us has an identity grounded in divinity with the potential to become all that our parents are.”
Erickson spoke of a renowned analyst in Washington, D.C., who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. People would say she was the most talented analyst and writer in D.C. And yet, her last writing post was nothing about her career. It was about her 9- and 11-year-old children, who she just helped get ready for Halloween from her sick bed.
“What it tells us is, at the end of it all, what we will yearn for around us are these relationships that we have built,” said Erickson.
‘He is the waymaker’
“The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”
Individuals can value “the immeasurable privilege that it is to be that deeply connected to another human being” and recognize that God’s children “are designed for deep relationships eternally” but still acknowledge that these relationships “are not easy.”
These close, intimate relationships “will break us,” Erickson said. “It’s designed, in a sense, to enable us to experience a broken heart and a contrite spirit in the deepest form of intimacy. We will be very imperfect at it. We will fail our children. We will do things we wish we hadn’t. And yet, in it all, in the end, it will be the greatest meaning, the greatest privilege, the essence of our experience.”
During a devotional broadcast to BYU–Pathway Worldwide students two years ago, Erickson shared how when she finally married, she faced infertility. When she was eventually blessed with two children, she struggled with what she felt were her own weaknesses as a mother.
All will experience a gap from the ideal, she explained. That gap can only be bridged by faith and trust in the Redeemer, “Who will eventually give more than we could have ever imagined.”
Often, the Lord will invite individuals to lay their hopes and dreams on His altar, “and what we find out is He is the waymaker,” Erickson said.
Through the Savior, “any pain we have known will be so remarkably restored in a fullness of joy that we will just stand in awe of the goodness of God. That’s who He is. And along the way, we will have learned so much about how to be charitable, how to be meek, how to be a Christ-filled person. And that’s what we need here. It actually isn’t about all of our dreams coming true here. That’s part of the next act,” Erickson said.
The imperfections individuals experience in families and relationships can be what drive them to the Savior. “We have been given a Redeemer to walk that path and grant us the power to be changed into beings of eternal love. What I do know is God, our father, our mother, are love. God is love, and that celestial life is a life of perfect love and intimacy,” Erickson said.
That is what the proclamation gives to the world: “It lays out how — through the Atonement of Jesus Christ — we can all participate in sacred ordinances and covenants that bring us back to the presence of God and bind us in eternal relationships forever.”
