The Power of Temple Sealings

There was a day last week that I ran out of post ideas (yes, it happens!) so I asked my friend Tabitha what she would choose for me to write about.... any question or thought that she had ever wondered about.

She requested that I write about my feelings pertaining to temple sealings.

There are only one or two people (if that many) that I've shared my personal thoughts with on this topic so let me first explain why Tabitha would choose this particular topic.

Pause.... for those of you who are not familiar as to what the term "temple sealing" means, please read this link.. It provides background to several things I will mention in this post. 

When my parents decided to get married, my mother was still sealed to another man from a previous marriage. (Divorced, but still sealed). It is a really big deal in the LDS church to cancel a sealing and can take anywhere from a month to over a year for the process to be approved and completed. The way I have been told the story is that my father did not want to wait until the sealing was cancelled. He wanted to get married without the wait and then a year after the cancellation, be sealed in the temple. That was the plan. So, my parents were married and a year went by after the sealing was cancelled and by that time, a new sealing was not in my father's plans. I was born (I'm not even sure if that was before or after the year mark post the cancellation) and by the time I hit my first birthday, I already was being raised by a single mother. When I was 4, my mother remarried another man in the temple and became sealed to him. I was not allowed to be sealed to my mother and step father due to a refusal of consent from my father which, as a minor, I was required to have. Around the age of 10 my mother and step father separated and by ~11, divorced. This cut off any option of me being sealed to parents during my life on this earth unless by some chance my mother was to marry again. 

Once I was old enough to fully realize the situation, I let it fill me with hatred. There is a song that is commonly sung by children (and adults) in church called Families Can Be Together Forever. 

Here are the lyrics to the first verse:
1. I have a fam’ly here on earth.
They are so good to me.
I want to share my life with them through all eternity.

[Chorus]
Fam’lies can be together forever
Through Heav’nly Father’s plan.
I always want to be with my own family,
And the Lord has shown me how I can.
The Lord has shown me how I can.

I hated that song because for me, it was a lie. I didn't want to share my life with my father and/or step father for all eternity. My family was not forever. I blamed my father for ruining my present family and eternal family. I blamed him for not being the father he should have been and by doing so, damaging my life in an irreparable way. I hated him for not letting me be sealed to my mother and step father because even though I didn't want to be sealed to my step father, I would have at least been sealed to someone. I hated him for leaving me alone. If I died I feared I would lose my family forever. 

This hatred made me start asking questions. I wanted to know if there was still a way I could be sealed to my family forever. I talked to my bishop one day and asked him this and he gave the best answer I think could be given to a child. He told me that although he didn't know exactly how it would come to be, that I would be sealed to my family some day if I wanted to be even though that some day may not be during my life here on this earth. He explained that God loves us so much that he gave us families, which is the entire focus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He said that God wants us to be happy and be with our families so if I wanted, He would make that happen.

After that point in my life, I began learning how to forgive. I learned how to forgive my father for all the failures I held him accountable for and hated him for. I learned how to forgive my step father for turning into someone entirely different than the person who taught me how to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I learned how to forgive myself for my hatred and flaws. And most of all, I learned how to forgive God for the trials He has placed in my life, even though those trials have shaped who I am and have created the strength I hold.

And that strength is what I want to focus on. 

Let me first state that I am not, and have never been, anywhere close to perfect. I think we can all say that. Something I have discovered with trials is that rather that relishing in their pain, I can take a step back and attempt to figure out what I am supposed to gain from them. What am I supposed to learn and how will this event in my life make me stronger and a better person? My very intimate emotions with temple sealings caused me to make the rule that I would only date boys that I was able to be sealed to some day since I already knew that a marriage without a sealing was out of the question in my own personal line of choices. I failed at that rule miserably. Over and over and over again. But I am learning. 

That rule has now become something much stronger. My feelings on temple sealings have come to influence the majority of my decisions in life, whether directly or indirectly. I strive to be the best person I can be because I want to be sealed in the temple. In order to do that, I have to be a righteous, worthy daughter of God. That requirement alone entails quite a large list of things. I have to be the person that the absolutely amazing man I am planning on marrying will want to marry. Having my focus on a temple marriage is what creates the good person I occasionally (and hopefully more than occasionally) am.

But my feelings on temple marriages have done much more in my life. This summer I was able to share part of my story one night with a group of girls that I was a counselor for during a week long period. My experience answered someone else's prayers and calmed their worries. 

My testimony of the validity of a temple marriage is the one thing that answered my prayers to know if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was true or not. I know that the LDS church is true because I know that being sealed to your family forever is true. 

My strong feelings for temple sealings have caused me to fall in love with the second verse of Families Can Be Together Forever:

2. While I am in my early years,
I’ll prepare most carefully,
So I can marry in God’s temple for eternity. 

[Chorus]
Fam’lies can be together forever
Through Heav’nly Father’s plan.
I always want to be with my own family,
And the Lord has shown me how I can.
The Lord has shown me how I can.

Even though I know for my time on earth, I will never be sealed to my parents or grandparents or any other family members I have right now, I know I have the potential to be sealed to the family that I create through my own marriage and my children. I know that I can "marry in God's temple for eternity." 

So... what are my feelings on temple sealings? I feel overjoyed, happy, and filled with hope. I know that being sealed to my family is the single most important choice I can make during my life here on this earth. I think a temple sealing is the most incredible thing I can't even begin to fully comprehend.

THAT is what I feel, and think, and live. 

My trials in this area have made me stronger than I can fully comprehend and for them, I am grateful.

The picture at the beginning of the post is of a sealing room in a temple. During a temple marriage/sealing, the couple kneel across the altar from each other. On each of the walls behind them there is a mirror. I cannot wait for the day that I will stand with my eternal companion and look into those mirrors and see ourselves together, reflected into the eternities.

"I love to see the temple. I'll go inside some day. I'll covenant with my Father. I'll promise to obey. For the temple is a holy place where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I've learned this truth: A family is forever."