Zina Diantha Huntington: Joseph Smith Taught Her the Doctrine of a Heavenly Mother When She Grieved Her Own

Zina Diantha Huntington (1821–1901) was living in Nauvoo, Illinois, when her mother Zina Baker Huntington died. The grief was profound. Zina came to the Prophet Joseph Smith seeking comfort and asked him whether she would know her mother in the hereafter.

Joseph's answer was tender and expanded far beyond what she expected. He told her not only that she would know her mother — but that she would also know her Heavenly Mother.

This was a doctrine that had not been widely taught at that time. For Zina, who had just lost her earthly mother and was seeking comfort in the midst of grief, the revelation that a divine Mother existed was a profound and consoling gift. It stayed with her for the rest of her life.

Years later, in 1845, Zina's brother Oliver penned the words: 'In the heavens are parents single? No; the thought makes reason stare!' The concept of Heavenly Mother — which Joseph had taught Zina in private comfort — was formalized in Eliza R. Snow's poem 'O My Father' (1843), which Zina knew well and treasured.

Zina went on to become one of the most articulate early voices on the doctrine of divine feminine. Her experience of grief met by revelation in a private conversation with the Prophet became part of the foundation of one of the most distinctive and comforting doctrines of the Restoration: that we have not one divine Parent but two, and that we are the literal spirit children of both a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother.