“Against These Things”: Crossing the Great Deep with Rebecca Jensen

“And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come.”—Ether 2:25

In Rebecca Sorge Jensen’s striking painting Against These Things, the viewer is given a sense of how helpless the Jaredites were on their journey to the promised land. The woman in the barge is facing immense odds. “The waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come” (Ether 2:25) are here exemplified through the exaggerated size of the fish and the barge. She has no hope to make it across the ocean without the guidance of the Lord. This helplessness is further exemplified by the woman’s body language; she lies in the fetal position, almost as if she were a child in the womb. Her eyes are closed and she appears to be praying, begging the Lord to help them with this seemingly impossible voyage. 

This image also stands out because it tells a part of the Jaredite story not discussed in the scriptural account. Moroni glosses over the difficulty of their journey in his abridgment of their records. The crossing of the sea only receives nine verses in Ether 6, all of which highlight the Jaredites’ gratitude for the blessings of the Lord, rather than the hardships they experienced. Sometimes I see this reticence to discuss hardships in our modern-day church culture too. We may gloss over our difficult experiences so as not to seem pessimistic or ungrateful. But while gratitude for our blessings is important, so is talking about the hardships that make us truly grateful for those mercies. 

I’ve learned through my own experience the gratitude we can experience in times of adversity. I was a missionary in upstate New York when COVID hit in March 2020. I will never forget the morning my companions and I woke to a text from our mission president telling us that we were in quarantine for the next two weeks. I was suddenly confined to my apartment, only allowed outside for an hour and a half every day. Instead of knocking on doors and street contacting, I spent my days calling phone number after phone number. Our isolation gradually extended to a month, then two, then indefinitely. With few people picking up the phone and even fewer showing kindness when they did, I began to feel like I was no longer fulfilling my purpose as a missionary. I started to plead with the Lord to let me go home but, after weeks of asking, it became apparent that the divine intervention I was so desperate for was not coming. 

I imagine this is how the Jaredites also felt on their journey. Traveling in airtight barges with little light inside, submerged for hours and days at a time, and being completely unable to help themselves would be unimaginably challenging. I am sure the Jaredites woke every morning with a prayer that this would be the day they would reach land, only to be disappointed when the sun set and their deliverance had once again not come. Yet, they did not abandon hope. They continued to trust in the Lord and turn to Him, even and especially when His plan was not their plan. This is a painting about faith: faith that the Lord would carry them across the turbulent water to land, faith that He had a plan for them, the faith that, as they relied on Him, He would take them where He needed them to go and turn them into who He needed them to be. 

As I gaze at the painting, I feel this Jaredite young woman’s story has become my own. I, like her, was secluded in a small space, not knowing if or when my deliverance would come. I felt battered by the metaphorical waves, winds, and floods of my journey. Even in this moment of desperation, though, the artist makes it clear that the Lord has not forsaken this young woman. Two of the glowing stones He touched rest at her head and feet, reminding her that she is not alone and that His light is with her in her silent struggles. Although the time I spent serving from my apartment on my mission was one of the hardest things I have experienced, I can look back now and know that I too was not forsaken. The Lord’s light was with me, even when I didn’t recognize it there.

Emma Belnap is a senior at Brigham Young University, where she is studying art history and curatorial studies. She is a research assistant for the Book of Mormon Art Catalog.