Down Syndrome

Sunday evening a member of the Young Women’s presidency asked if I could come to the YW meeting on Wednesday and talk to the girls about Down Syndrome.  A 13 year old girl named Ferrah with Down  Syndrome recently moved into our ward.  She specifically asked if I could help the girls know how to act or to respond to Ferrah.  She is an active young lady during their meetings.

The next couple of days I prayed asking Heavenly Father what He wanted me to teach them about Down Syndrome.  Thoughts and impression immediately started coming to my mind.  They didn’t come directly as to what to tell the children to do and how to act around Ferrah.  Yet, bits and pieces of information about these special children’s spirit life came and then was followed by me pondering and asking more questions in prayer.

The main question that arose in my mind was why these children with handicaps don’t need to be baptized. Neither of my brothers with Down Syndrome were baptized.  I remember learning pretty young that it was not necessary.  Why was it not neccessary for them?  In the Second Book of Nephi Chapter 3, Nephi tells why Christ was baptized.  Men must follow Christ, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end to be saved.  Repentance and baptism are the gate to the strait and narrow path—Eternal life.

I put that together in my mind with the knowledge I had of when children pass away before the age of accountability they are ensured a place in the Celestial Kingdom.   It was not necessary for them to endure a full life of mortality on earth.  Why?

The more I thought and pondered on these question, the more I received.  At the temple on Tuesday it was difficult to focus on the movie as impression and ideas about these special children flooded my mind.

The impressions I received was that in the spirit world these children fulfilled all that was required of them.  If I understood the impressions correctly, basically, somehow, they fulfilled all the Lord’s commandments and covenants in the spirit world.  My mind phrased that to say, their election and promises were made sure in the spirit world.  They had a secure place among the Kingdom of God.  And mortality was not a crucial eternal step for them to accomplish.

From that thought my mind moved upon the idea that they were not allowed to come to earth in normal bodies like us because with their election made sure they would have a huge advantage over us.  The Lord wouldn’t have it that way.

Every spirit has a choice to accept a body and come to earth.  It is God’s plan that we learn and grown in mortality and through that learning process if done in righteous obedience we gain our eternal existence.  Yet, I was impressed to think that these special children somehow already gained their eternal existence without necessarily needing the mortal experiences to learn it. 

So I came to conclusion that these individuals who in all tense and purposes could have chosen to stay in the spirit world until the resurrection, willingly chose to still come to earth.  Why?  Because; They came for us!  They sacrificed and chose to come in less than perfect bodies because of their perfect love for Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and for us.

Having that information enter my mind and then my soul gave me a whole new perspective when I come in contact with a handicapped child.  I wish I had that knowledge when I was growing up in a home with two brothers with Down Syndrome.  Instead I admit I was often times embarrassed of them and remember walking 10 steps behind my family so people wouldn’t know I was associated with them.  I am so ashamed.

This was the answer to my prayers.  This is what the Lord wanted me to teach the group of girls who will each week have contact with Ferrah.  This is information I needed to know at their age.  What a pleasure to share this truth with them.

After I explained this new found truth to them I asked them, “what is the first commandment”.  “To love God” was the response from one girl.  I followed that with, “How do we show our love to Heavenly Father?”  They responded with all the right answer, “prayer, making good choices, going to church, reading our scriptures, keeping the commandments and serving.”

I told the girls of the story when the resurrected Christ came to Peter and several other disciples while they were fishing.  The fishermen were having no success catching fish.  Jesus told them to put their nets on a right side of the boat.  They obeyed and caught a multitude of fish.  They all went to the beach and had a fish fry and were fed temporally and spiritually by Jesus. 

Afterwards, Jesus asked Peter the same question three times.  “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”  Peter responded each time with, “thou knowest that I love thee”.  Jesus counters back with, then “feed my sheep”. 

I then asked the girls what was Jesus asking Peter to do?  What does it mean to feed His sheep?  We came to the conclusion Jesus was telling Peter and He tells all of us to “Love and fellowship ALL of His children.”

At this point in the conversation with the girls I explained how when we show love, kindness and fellowship towards another that very act creates an opening in our hearts to then feel and receive God’s love for us.  

God’s love is real and constant.  I tried to make it clear to them, that we don’t EARN God’s love when we show love, kindness and fellowship to others.  We LEARN it!  Because when that spot in our heart is opened and we receive God’s love we are learning just how much He perfectly and unconditionally loves us.  We are being fed spiritual truths when we “feed” others.

It’s like when we pray and read our scriptures.  We don’t become favored of the Lord by doing those personal things.  What happens when we pray, read, and study is that we LEARN just how favored we already are and always have been by the Lord.  We don’t earn favoritism, we learn how favored we are as His precious child.

Interacting and accepting a relationship with an individual with special needs and the unique challenges that come with Down syndrome is a great opportunity to learn God’s love.  Certain aspects of His unconditional love can’t be learned any other way.  It is pretty easy to love a friend that thinks and acts pretty much the same as us.  It is a whole different story to love and accept a person who at times can be embarrassing, annoying, loud, hurtful and sometimes unresponsive to our gestures of kindness and love.  Imagine how much God’s love we can learn and feel by accepting this opportunity.

I told the girls, “It is not a mistake that Ferrah moved into our ward.  We all need to experience God’s perfect love.  What a blessing He has given us an opportunity to know Him through our interaction with Ferrah.  The choice is now ours to accept or reject this opportunity.”

“I wish I could tell you how to accept her, how to love her and how to react to her, but I can’t.  Yet I know who can tell you and show you.  Heavenly Father knows each and every one of you personally and He knows what type of love you are capable of learning and expressing.  He knows Ferrah and what she is capable of teaching us.  I invite you to pray and ask Heavenly Father what you can do to love and accept Ferrah?  Ask Him how you should react when Ferrah does things so differently than you?  The Holy Ghost is your constant companion and He will direct your thought, words and actions when you ask with a sincere heart willing to do all that He asks of you.  Of this I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

As I was recording this in my journal I was prompted to read in John 21 the story of Jesus asking Peter, “lovest thou me?” again.  I had forgotten how right after this, Jesus foretells of Peter’s martyrdom.  And then after that He explains John’s translation.  I didn’t understand the verses 20-25.  So I went into some deeper study at gospeldoctrine.org and recalled that this was the disciple, John the Revelator, who had asked Jesus if he could stay on the earth so he could bring more souls unto Him.  John desired that he might do more, or a greater work yet among men than what he had before done.

This warmed my soul and once again confirmed that these special spirits like my brothers, Troy and David and Ferrah with Down Syndrome chose to come “tarry” on earth.  They could have chosen to stay in the spirit world, or even to come gain a body and leave this earth quickly.  Yet, they chose to come in less than perfect bodies so we could learn the true love of God.  They, like John, desired to do greater work among men than you and I.

I found great comfort in this quote by Neal A Maxwell.

"While striving to walk the same straight and narrow path as other disciples, it is unwise for us to make comparisons. Peter questioned what John was to do. Jesus' rejoinder was, 'What is that to thee? Follow thou me. ' (John 21:22.) We mortals do not have all the data even on ourselves, let alone on others. But God does. Having faith in Him includes faith in His purposes not only for ourselves but also for others. Only He who carried the great cross can fully compare crosses.

Here is another quote I love by Jeffrey R Holland.

“My beloved brothers and sisters, I am not certain just what our experience will be on Judgment Day, but I will be very surprised if at some point in that conversation, God does not ask us exactly what Christ asked Peter: "Did you love me?" I think He will want to know if in our very mortal, very inadequate, and sometimes childish grasp of things, did we at least understand one commandment, the first and greatest commandment of them all-"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind." (Luke 10:27) And if at such a moment we can stammer out, "Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee," then He may remind us that the crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty.”

"If ye love me, keep my commandments," Jesus said. So we have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to defend. We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do. In short, we have a life of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love of the Lord. We can't quit and we can't go back...”