Stories like this don’t take away grief.
The don’t answer every question or make the pain disappear.
But they remind us of something steady and unchanging.
Even in the hardest moments – especially in the hardest moments – God does not step away.
Sometimes being “called back” is not about returning from a great distance.
Sometimes it is about being held while we are still trying to hold on.
If you are grieving or if your faith feels fragile right now, you are not forgotten.
He is still near.
And His invitation is still the same – given with patience, with understanding and always with love.
Jamie’s Story
I’m sure there will be a day soon when none of us really feel the need to mention we are from the old 3rd ward family but I just wanted to say this…As you all know wards do in fact become families. You go through a lot together. I mean A LOT! Change isn’t easy. Some may say it’s dramatic to imply a family has been torn apart but if we are honest, it can really feel like that. Some of those people have seen you through the most trying times of your life. As hard as this has been for some of us I must say that I personally came to the quick realization that my ward family didn’t go away, it just grew. It just takes a little more effort to keep those connections strong. I want to express how much I have loved getting to know and becoming part of the 12th ward family. For me personally you have blessed my life and it has made the change easier.
I preface my talk in this way because I have been asked to speak on some of my life experiences and how I have found Christ in them. With that, I apologize to those who have known us for years because they may be hearing a lot of things they’ve heard before.
For those who don’t know me, my name is Jamie and I’m the second counselor in the relief society. My husband Mike and I have been blessed with three amazing kids. Our oldest, Austin, is 24. He is the sweetest guy you will ever meet. He loves history, music, sports and traveling. He taught himself how to play the guitar and bass, collects old vinyl records, and if you ask him what kind of music he likes…well lets just say he can talk to anyone in this room about the artists he listens to no matter what age you are. Try him. His nickname is OldSoul.
Dylan is 18. He will be graduating from high school this year. He is one of the most head strong, resilient, guys you’ll ever meet. One thing all my kids have in common is their love of music. It’s gotten them through so much. He loves to draw. He also loves sports, especially baseball and football. If the Seahawks are playing you’re sure to hear the 12th man thunder coming from our house. This kid has passion and I can not wait to see where it takes him.
Our youngest is ZoeJane. Heaven opened its doors for her in our home on September 21, 2023. She was just 13 and would have turned 16 this last January. Oh how I wish you all could have met her. She was a vibrant, smart, beautiful girl. She was a perfect mixture of sweet, silly and sass! She loved music and was obsessed with the band One Direction and called herself Mrs. Styles. She was boy-crazy. She loved hanging out with friends, shopping and dancing. She loved making TikToks and wanted to be a makeup influencer. Her favorite color changed so much that when she was little we determined it was Rainbow Sparkle. Someone’s favorite color can say a lot about them. To say ZoeJane was a colorful person is a fair statement. She never wore matching socks and if her big toe was sticking out, well that was even better. She had such a carefree spirit. She wanted to start her own lip gloss business, go to college, get married and be a mom. She loved to travel. She danced on the stages of rock bands. She loved life and lived it to the fullest. Some would say she lived life more like a Rockstar than a cancer patient. She once gave her brothers a Christmas gift. It was a picture of the three of them. She was laughing so hard in the picture and of course the boys were trying to give good smiles for mom. She printed on it. “I smile because you’re my brothers. I laugh because there’s nothing you can do about it.” Lol
They wouldn’t have it any other way.
When my kids were really little I remember having a conversation with my best friend about how blessed we are. We talked about our childhood, our families growing up, and the families we’d started. Sure we had hard times and everyone has trials but we had never faced anything devastating. Our hearts ached for those we knew that were going through unimaginable trials. I said outloud, “Man, I’m not sure I want to know what trials God has in store for me.” That’s when I swear I heard Him say out loud to Jesus, “Here, hold my ROOTbeer!”
As many of you know, on December 29, 2017, almost 8 years ago our world was turned upside down. Our daughter ZoeJane was a month away from turning 8 years old. It was just a few days after Christmas when we heard the devastating news that she had a tumor on her brain stem. It was called DIPG. It’s not a solid tumor that can be removed. It was on her brain stem and was intertwined with all the nerves in her pons. There is no cure, with a prognosis of 6-9 months, 12 if you’re lucky. They offer a standard of 30 days of radiation which will sometimes shrink the tumor increasing prognosis by a few months. After that with no other standard of care, we were left to scour through all the possible clinical trials if we wanted to. Talk about feeling hopeless.
Within the hour of receiving this news our angels came swooping in. We had friends and family taking care of our boys, research teams formed, Fundraiser teams formed, we had family coming to bless our girl as we prepared her to go into a risky biopsy surgery. The lobby was filled with people who love our girl, who love our family. We had teams preparing a warm homecoming after we were required to spend New Years Eve in the hospital. We started receiving phone calls and messages from people stating that they had added our girl to every temple prayer roll they could get access to. We had parents and families of other children who had been diagnosed with DIPG reaching out, offering support. ZoeJane had men who had never prayed before on their knees. I swear we felt like we were falling but never hit the ground thanks to so many people who came together in His name to support us.
Everywhere we looked, every time we turned around, there was someone or something else showing us God’s hands were holding us. The moment I heard ZoeJane had cancer the song, A Child’s Prayer, kept running through my head. As I sat on the floor of the hospital bathroom sobbing because it was the only place I could be alone, and feeling so lost I received a message from Brother Clark. He was the chorister in our primary at the time. His message was a recording of our primary children singing A Child’s Prayer for ZoeJane. At that moment I knew. I knew that when the world was telling us that we had no hope, we could find hope in Him. He was listening. He could hear our prayers. He knew exactly what we were going through and what we needed.
The night after we had come home from the hospital we heard a knock at the door. It was the familiar faces of a beautiful family in our ward. The dad explained that their family had been praying for ZoeJane and our family. They expressed how sorry they were that we were in this situation and wanted to help in some way. He continued by saying that his children had come to him with a jar full of money that they had been saving up to purchase ice skating lessons. They wanted to give the money to our family to help with whatever we might need at the time. As I looked at all those cute little faces I had this wave of guilt pass over me. How could we possibly accept this gift? These kids had been working so hard and saving their pennies for something they really wanted. I just didn’t feel right about it. We didn’t do anything to deserve that money. I smiled and told the children how amazing and sweet they are. How their gesture touched our hearts. I thanked them from the bottom of our hearts but we just couldn’t accept the money. All of their faces fell. Tears welled up in some of their eyes as they all turned to their dad. He looked at them then looked back at me. He said, “You have to understand that this is a sacrifice my children wanted to make. The joy that will fill their little spirits if you accept their gift is worth every penny in that jar. Please take it.” He sat the jar in my hands and I thought wow, there must be hundreds of pennies in this jar. I love these children and I accepted their gift. A couple of days later ZoeJane and I decided to count the pennies in the jar so we could put it away in preparation for all the medical and travel expenses that were sure to come. We opened the jar and as we dumped the pennies on the table several $100 dollar bills that were buried in the pennies fell out. The sacrifice these children made was bigger than I had imagined. Suddenly that feeling of guilt passed over me. But it wasn’t because I had accepted the jar. It was because now, I understood the true magnitude of the sacrifice that they had made for us and I almost rejected their gift. It made me think of how Jesus must feel when we reject his gift, the gift of the atonement and salvation. His sacrifice was greater than anything we can truly imagine. The thought breaks my heart.
After ZoeJane’s diagnosis I had quite a few instances where good people with good hearts asked me, “How can you still go to church?” Or expressed to me that they were worried that I would stop going to church. I understood their thought process. It stems from the need to blame someone for the trials we face that seem so unfair. It comes from a place of fear and anger. Without hesitation my response was, “I’m not going anywhere. I can’t get through this without him”
If I took the time to tell you about even half of the big and small miracles we have seen in this journey, we would be here all day. But I am going to tell a few stories that are hard not to see God’s tender mercies in. During ZoeJane’s 30 days of radiation we spent most of our time trying to figure out what to do next. I have never prayed so hard in my entire life. I kept hearing about a treatment in Mexico that appeared to show hope as some of the kids who were doing it were doing really well. Something didn’t feel right though. I felt so scared. My enthusiasm didn’t match that of all who were trying to help me figure out what to do. I couldn’t tell if my feelings were feelings based on being scared of venturing outside of my comfort zone or if the treatment wasn’t the right thing for our girl.
For fear that it was insecurity we decided to start moving in the direction of treatments in Mexico. We got our passports and had been accepted into the program. ZoeJane had me sleeping with her every night. Although I wasn’t sleeping much. If I wasn’t researching I was praying and if I wasn’t praying I was watching her sleep trying to memorize every inch of her face, her hands and the sound of her breathing. One night at almost 11 pm while ZoeJane slept next to me I got a message from my best friend. A dad who was further along in this journey with his daughter had called her to say there was a new trial opening up and we needed to check it out. I had her send it to me. I started reading through it as I had done with so many others. This one was different. As I read the hair on my arms stood up. I had chills and I felt as though I wanted to scream out with excitement. This was it!!!! This was the trial we needed to be on! I had never felt so sure of anything my entire life. I emailed ZoeJane’s Oncologist at 12:30 am. He responded only minutes later saying, “I’m on it!”
Six weeks later after an MRI that showed a dramatic response to radiation we were in New York City for the first time. We lived there for a month and then after that we had to go back every 3 weeks. On our second trip back to NY as we were trying to make our way to the subway from the JFK airport, there was a woman who made eye contact with me and started walking towards me very quickly. She looked as though she may be homeless. It made me nervous at first but she stopped with her face about a foot from mine and she said very quickly, “You’re here. You’re in the right place for healing. You have come to the right place to heal your baby.” And then she turned and walked away with the same speed she approached me with. I had never seen this woman before. There was nothing about us that would indicate why we were in NY to anyone who didn’t ask us why we were there. Was she a mentally unstable woman who didn’t know what she was saying? I don’t know for sure. What I do know is the peace I felt after she left was indescribable.
At one point we realized we were going to have to spend Christmas in New York City. We always made the most of our trips to New York, so we were very excited to spend Christmas there although the kids were a little nervous. How would Santa know where they were? We reassured them and amongst all the fun activities we had planned we wanted to make sure it felt at home for Christmas even though we were thousands of miles away. A Christmas tree for our room at the Ronald McDonald house would be the first thing on our to do list. We landed in New York the evening of the 23rd. The next day was Christmas eve so we set out after dropping all our luggage off to find a tree. Our hope was that there would be a small tree lot on a corner somewhere close. As we walked around there wasn’t a tree lot to be found, so we decided to look for a fake tree. We checked a couple stores and walked for what seemed like forever. We finally ended up at a Target Store that would be closing soon. We walked around the store for a while and we saw nothing. I even thought about drawing a tree on a piece of cardboard, letting the kids decorate it and taping it up on the wall. We finally went to the cash registers and asked if they had any trees available that we just didn’t see. The employees told us that they were sorry but they didn’t sell artificial trees at that store. Disheartened and tired after traveling all day we turned to leave the store. As we were passing an escalator that we had passed on the way in I looked up against the wall and there was an artificial tree in a box. It was the only one left so we ran over to grab it. It was perfect. Four ft high and pre lit! How did we miss it!? Our boys carried it to the cash register all bright eyed and excited. The cashier looked surprised and attempted to ring up the tree. The tree didn’t register. They called a manager over to see what they needed to do to ring it up. The manager then said that they don’t recall seeing any trees in the store this year and that this tree was not in their system. We stood there a few minutes, a little confused. I mean, we had a tree in our hands and we found it in this store. We couldn’t just walk out with it. We discussed how badly we wanted this tree and why we were in New York City. It was impossible to miss the feeling everyone in the room had. We were experiencing something special at this moment. They didn’t know what to do and we couldn’t leave without paying for it so they agreed to take $30 for the tree and we were on our way back to the Ronald McDonald House to set up our new perfect little Christmas tree. We believe this was a Christmas Miracle and another sign that God’s hands are in everything.
The clinical trial ZoeJane was on required an MRI every 8 weeks and with every MRI we received the news that she was stable. She was doing so well! To meet her you wouldn’t even know she was in the fight of her life. Oh we had so much hope. She had defied the odds. We believe this clinical trial that God led us to, gave us years instead of months with our girl.
For the next four and a half years we made every effort to create new memories and raise awareness to the monster that threatened to steal our girl. Then in the summer of 2022 after a routine MRI we were told that her tumor had started growing. It was more than a punch to the gut. It felt like diagnosis day all over again. When we thought it wasn’t possible to pray any more we prayed more. We continued fighting. We tried other clinical therapies knowing deep down they weren’t going to help. The horror of this tumor is that the mind stays completely aware but the body starts to lose its functions. It starts with double vision, then losing arm and leg coordination making it so they can’t walk or even lift their hands to eat but at that point they can’t swallow so they choke on any effort to eat or drink. They can’t hold their head up and then lose the ability to talk. They eventually become locked in a body that can’t move. Remember their mind is completely intact so they know exactly what’s happening to them. Most children who are locked in like this suffer for days, weeks, sometimes even months in that state. Eventually their body loses its ability to breathe. Within just a few hours of ZoeJane being locked in, our heavenly father gave her her heavenly healing. Life hits you differently when your prayers move from, ”God, please help my baby”, to “God, please take her now.” As odd as it sounds to find a blessing in this situation, the fact he heard my prayer and didn’t allow her to suffer in that state of being completely locked in for more than a couple hours was a huge tender mercy.
She wanted so much to live. Our hearts are shattered. Learning to navigate this life without her has been so hard and almost impossible at times for our family. I know we will be with her again. Just not soon enough. I am so grateful for our Heavenly Father and the promise of eternal families. Bringing a child into this world is hard, but giving them back is so much harder. Watching my husband and my sons suffer so much knowing they are feeling lost and angry and afraid we will never feel joy again is so hard.
Like they did in the beginning I have had people ask me if I am angry with God. If I struggle with my faith because how could he allow this to happen? To be honest, I am incredibly sad and frustrated. In one of my low moments when I felt anger coming on I found this message. I couldn’t find the author to credit but I will read it to you just the same.
“How great the Father’s love for His Son. Because, for the Atonement to be complete, Jesus didn’t just have to suffer physically for our sins. He had to feel the full weight of abandonment, the silence, the distance, the cry of a soul reaching for heaven and feeling nothing return. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That moment wasn’t weakness; it was depth beyond comprehension. Because He was stepping into our place, into every moment we would ever feel forgotten, unseen, or left behind. And the Father, He allowed it because He loved us. That kind of love costs something. To remain while your Son suffers, to hold back when you have the power to stop it, to stay close enough to strengthen but distant enough to let the sacrifice be complete. The Son suffered in body and soul; the Father suffered in love and restraint, for us. And maybe that changes how we see our own suffering. Because there are moments when God feels quiet, when heaven feels distant, when we wonder if we’ve been left alone. But this moment teaches us something sacred: feeling abandoned is not the same as being abandoned. Sometimes the holiest work is happening in the silence. Sometimes God doesn’t remove the weight because He knows what it will produce. And sometimes He is closer than we realize, even when we cannot feel Him. You may feel alone, but you are not in a place He hasn’t already been.” (Quoted passage from an unknown author, shared widely online)
I look forward to the day that I more fully understand His plan. But I also know that I need to be close to my heavenly father more now than ever. ZoeJane is with him and distancing myself from the one who holds my baby now just doesn’t make sense. As hard as all of this is, I see his hand in everything. I am going to share one last story.
The Saturday after ZoeJane returned to live with our Heavenly Father our family decided to venture out to find her final resting place. I felt bad that I had not planned all this already, but it was something I think any parent would dread. Mike and I have always loved visiting the Salt Lake City Cemetery. It’s so beautiful and peaceful there. Mike had made his mind up already that it would definitely be the location but said he would entertain us by looking at a few other places as well.
Our first stop was the Salt Lake City Cemetery. As we drove around, I felt numb. There was another cemetery very close by called Mt. Olivet. It’s located right across the street from the University of Utah’s Rice Eccles Stadium. There was a Utes game going on so the main entrance to the cemetery was closed. As we passed the cemetery we noticed there was a back road and the gate was open, so we entered that way.
As we were making our way down the back road Mike said out loud, “Okay Baby girl. You need to let us know where you want to be.”
Not even 15 seconds later I looked over and saw a big brown bunny in the grass. Chills ran through me, and I screamed, “Wait! Stop! This is it! This is where she wants to be!” I could hardly contain the emotion running through me as I explained to Mike and boys that about a year prior, as ZoeJane and I were having one of our nightly conversations as I would tickle her back, she said, “Mom, you know how we look for signs of those we love that have passed away? Like, we look for Sunflowers and think of Alexis? Well, if I die mom, I want you to look for bunnies.” At the time I smiled and said, “Honey! Bunnies? Where am I gonna see bunnies!?” We laughed and I kissed her forehead and prayed that day would never come. A little over a week before she passed away, before she lost her ability to communicate, she brought up that I need to look for bunnies again. Again, I laughed and said, “Babygirl, where am I gonna see bunnies?” Again, we chuckled a little and took our conversation to happier things.
We all jumped out of the car. Expecting the bunny to be skittish and run away, we all tried to be very quiet. As we walked towards the bunny it didn’t run away. As a matter of fact, it got playful! Dylan and I sat on the grass, and it came up to Dylan and let him pet its nose. It walked over to a spot and started to dig a hole then plopped itself in it…I’m not reading too much into this, but it seemed as if this bunny knew us! It eventually hopped away, and we were left feeling overwhelmed with emotion.
This is more than a coincidence. I know there is so much more beyond our life here on earth. The veil is thin and ZoeJane is still with us. It’s just different and incredibly hard right now. All of us face our own trials in this life. I don’t believe one is any greater than the other.
I can not wait for our Saviors’ return. I believe this is where every heartbreak will finally make sense. Every unanswered prayer. Every closed door. Every relationship that didn’t last. Every moment you sat there wondering: “God, what are You doing?” It won’t feel random anymore. It won’t feel like it was wasted. It’ll feel that everything happened exactly as it should have.
Scripture never promised a life without pain – it promised a God who works through it. Romans 8:28 doesn’t say “some” things work for good for those who love Him. It says all things work for good. Not just the wins, not just the blessings, but the heartbreak too.
The truth is, we spend so much of our lives demanding explanations now – as if we’re entitled to understand the Author, while we’re still in the middle of the story. But one day, standing in eternity, you won’t be asking: “Why did this happen?” We will be embracing our loved ones screaming “We made it!” We’ll be saying: “Now I see why it had to happen.”
- The betrayal that you thought broke you? It protected you.
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The delay you resented? It prepared you.
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The loss you never got over? It redirected you.
God doesn’t waste pain. He repurposes it. The path you thought was falling apart, was actually leading you to exactly where you needed to be all along. Until my human heart is in that place of full understanding I choose to hear President Camille N. Johnson when she says, “You can do hard with Jesus Christ, or you can do hard alone.” I will always choose Him.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen