Sariah: Mother of Faith

“…she truly had mourned because of us. For she had supposed that we had perished in the wilderness; and she also had complained against my father, telling him that he was a visionary man…”

Sariah. The first woman mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

What can we learn from her story?

For those who haven’t read the beginning of the Book of Mormon 30 times more than the rest of it, here’s a quick background.

Sariah is the wife of the Jerusalem prophet, Lehi. She is the mother of Nephi, whose written account is well-known perhaps because it is the first one in the Book of Mormon.

The first few chapters Nephi’s record summarizes the state of Jerusalem shortly before its capture and destruction around 587 B.C. His father, Lehi, has a vision informing him of the coming destruction. After his preaching is rejected and the people seek to kill him, he is told to take his family and quit Jerusalem.

However, it’s not all easy riding into the bliss of a promised land. They spend years roaming through a desert wilderness – twice returning to Jerusalem. The first time is to get scriptural and genealogical records and the second to convince a family with 5 unmarried daughters (and two married sons) to accompany them in wilderness and escape Jerusalem’s destruction.  It’s after the first successful trip, with records in tow, that we get our insight into Sariah. Our very first, real glimpse of a woman in the Book of Mormon.

“And it came to pass that after we had come down into the wilderness unto our father, behold, he was filled with joy, and also my mother, Sariah, was exceedingly glad, for she truly had mourned because of us. For she had supposed that we had perished in the wilderness; and she also had complained against my father, telling him that he was a visionary man; saying: Behold thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance, and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness. And after this manner of language had my mother complained against my father.”

Ah. So, it seems, we have our first glimpse of women in modern scripture….and she is complaining.

I’ve often had mixed feelings about this scripture. To me personally, it didn’t seem to paint Sariah in a particularly complimentary light. And while she does come to realize that Lehi’s visions were from God, and gains faith from it, it always appeared a bit negative to me. As if we were highlighting her lack of faith the way the record does with Laman and Lemuel. But this woman followed her husband through the wilderness, across the seas, and even bore two children in the midst of an almost constant onslaught of trial. As far as we know, she remained faithful to the end. So, I wondered why most of what we got in terms of dialogue was, well, complaining.

That was until one of my more recent readings of the story. Maybe others have realized this before, but my new thoughts made a difference in how I understood and perceived both Nephi and Sariah’s character. So, what changed in my studies? Well, I asked a question I guess I’d never thought to ask myself before:

Why did Nephi include this particular story?

His record is just a summary of course. And an abridgement of parts of his father’s record. And, as I understand it, Nephi used a lot of discretion in picking and choosing what was included and what wasn’t.

So, why this one? What was the message? Remember, he wasn’t actually there in person to hear his mother’s complaints and doubts or his father’s comforting counsel. So, someone had to tell him.

Was it Lehi? Did he take it upon himself to tell Nephi that his mother struggled believing in his visions? That seemed absurd to me. Or at least not much by way of an explanation.

In pondering it, I started to think about my mom. What if it was my mom and dad in the story, instead of Lehi and Sariah? How would they have acted? And then, somewhere in my thoughts, something occurred to me.

What if Sariah was the one who told Nephi? What if she wanted him to write it down?

My mind flashed back to a story my parents have repeated over the years about a time they made a mistake in ignoring a spiritual prompting that led to some financial difficulties. They repeated it constantly to teach us a lesson – don’t ignore spiritual impressions from God.

Suddenly, I imagined in my mind that Sariah was the one to approach Nephi and her other sons with this story after they returned. What if, every time Laman and Lemuel complained, she repeated her experiences and then added her testimony (a part of which we see in verse 8), that she knew “of a surety that the Lord hath commanded my husband to flee into the wilderness; yea, and I also know of a surety that the Lord hath protected [you], and delivered [you] out of the hands of Laban, and given [you] power whereby [you] could accomplish the thing which the Lord hath commanded [you].”

What if, as a tribute to the faith and determination of his mother, and her hope for her sons to learn, Nephi repeated the story in his account (or perhaps Lehi in his) as way to honor the lesson his mother learned and expended efforts in repeating and teaching?

What if Nephi included the story because she wanted him to?

Suddenly, I saw a woman of faith, willing to use her personal doubts and moments of weakness to impress upon her sons the need to act in faith and not doubt. I see her saying to them,

“What I learned from that experience was…” And “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.”

And suddenly, it seemed like a beautiful story with the intent to strengthen faith, rather than a simple story about a wife who didn’t believe enough.

I think, if Sariah was anything like my mother, then her faith, meekness, and willingness to let any mistakes and doubts build her family’s faith rather than weaken it is a sure evidence of the kind of woman she really was.

And it has inspired me to look differently at the characters in the Book of Mormon.

I still do not know why there are so few accounts of women in scriptures, but pondering over the story of Sariah has made me think more about the stories we do have and wonder more about the probably millions of women of faith whose stories are yet to be told.