2 Nephi 10 A lost child

I have not physically lost a child. I do have friends who have experienced the heartache of the death, stillborn birth, or miscarriage of a child, and their grief is an enduring pain which I cannot fully understand. I have also witnessed friends and family experience spiritual death due to choices that have separated them from Christ. I have felt what that separation feels like, and strive to avoid that in my daily choices. It would be very hard for me to see my own children also make those same choices, although I feel the most important thing for my children is that they are good people. I want them to love their neighbor, and I know it is my responsibility to allow them to know God. Ultimately, however, I know that the choice to follow God is theirs to make.

2 Nephi 10:2 are words of Jacob as he is reflecting his posterity. He “has been shown” that many of his children will not believe in God “nevertheless, God will be merciful unto many”. How merciful will God be to the unbelievers? That is a question that may be impossible to fully understand, but I would hope that if a person still chooses to “love thy neighbor” while being less focused on their belief in God is still living according to the light and knowledge that they have. Some of the most thoughtful, loving, and wonderful people I know are atheist or agnostic, and I admire them for their examples. I feel they will be of the people that “God will be merciful unto many.”