“Please Spare Mom’s Life,” Liahona, Mar. 2024.
Latter-day Saint Voices
Please Spare Mom’s Life
I was frightened when my mother needed open-heart surgery, but a devoted Primary teacher taught me to pray.
Christi Gerlach and her mother
Photograph courtesy of the author
When I was 10 years old, my mother had a massive heart attack. She spent many weeks in the hospital fighting for her life.
During this time, my Primary teacher, Sister Ellen Johnson, came to my home once a week to see me. I had just started attending Primary and had limited understanding of the gospel. Every week Sister Johnson bore her testimony to me and talked about prayer. She taught me that if I prayed, Heavenly Father would answer.
After several weeks, Mom’s health deteriorated further. She had a damaged heart valve that needed repair. Her doctor said she would die without experimental heart surgery. Her chances of recovery, however, were only about 50/50.
Open-heart surgery was new and risky in the early 1960s. Surgeons planned to cut Mom open from her chest to her backbone and then split her rib cage to access her heart. Many patients did not survive the surgery. I was upset and afraid my mother would die.
Dad was mostly at work or at the hospital with Mom. My older sister, Pam, took care of my brother and me. At night, I felt lonely and afraid, but I thought about what Sister Johnson had been teaching me about prayer. I often knelt by my bed and cried, pleading with Heavenly Father to spare Mom’s life.
During one such crying prayer, a great peace came over me and I stopped crying. I felt that everything was going to be OK. I felt reassured that my mother would live to see me grown and that I need not worry. I didn’t hear a voice or see a vision, but I had quiet, peaceful feelings. I did not doubt them. Heavenly Father had answered my prayer, and I knew it.
Illustration by Alex Nabaum
Mom survived the surgery. She was weak and sickly most of her life, but Heavenly Father had answered my prayers and spared her life. She lived to see me grow up, marry, and have children.
Years later, when President Russell M. Nelson became an Apostle, Mother told me he was the heart surgeon who had saved her life. I wrote him a letter to thank him. When he wrote back, he thanked me for my letter and acknowledged God’s help in his work.