In 2024, Meg Walter’s father passed away suddenly from a heart attack. Only one month later, she showed up to teach a ward Relief Society lesson—an assignment she had accepted weeks before her father’s death.
But the topic she had selected, Elder Gerrit W. Gong’s talk “All Things for Our Good,” felt unexpectedly personal and painful.
“I tried my best to keep it together and give this lesson,” Meg recalled on a recent episode of the All In podcast. “I said, ‘I don’t have a testimony of this. I don’t have a testimony that everything happens for my good. I’m in the thick of it.’”
Instead of changing the topic or dismissing Meg’s struggle, the Relief Society responded in a way that soothed her aching soul and reminded her of the hope found in Jesus Christ.
Mourning Together
During the lesson, the sisters lovingly mourned with Meg and offered their insights from similar experiences. She explained:
“These women, many of whom are older than I am, many of whom have lived more life than I have and have seen much harder things than I have, met me with so much empathy and cried with me and shared their experiences and their long, dark, cold nights and how they came out the other side. …
“They’ve continued to check in on me, and the Young Women’s Presidency checks in constantly with my daughter, and they’ve taken such good care of us. And I’m just incredibly grateful for that community and how they’ve mourned with me and truly been Christlike in that way.”
This Christlike service felt especially meaningful because Meg only knew about half her ward at the time.
“These people that I never met showed up for me in the most spectacular ways,” she says. “I’ve truly seen the face of God in the way others have made me feel loved. And to me, that’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Leaning Into Hope
Meg’s ward helped her find increased faith and hope, even when her questions and grief felt overwhelming.
“I need that hope that my faith offers me,” she shared. “I am getting much more comfortable with what I don’t know and what I hope, and I’m leaning more into what I hope.”
Just as her Relief Society showed up for her with Christlike empathy, Meg hopes to support others going through similar experiences.
“The thing that has most helped me navigate my grief is the experience of so many others who have lost someone before,” she wrote in a column for the Deseret News. “Loss redefines us. I hope that it’s redefined me for the better, that the lessons learned from it are not lost to time, and that I can help others navigate their grief the way others have helped me.”
Listen to Meg’s full interview on the All In podcast, which is available on all streaming platforms.
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