Forever

Yesterday, I was talking to my mother-in-law online and she mentioned that they were going to the temple in the evening. I said I wished I was going with them and she said, "You could!!"  Doug couldn't get off work early enough to come with us, so I drove to Tulare and rode up to Fresno with my mother and father in law and another couple from their ward.

We only did initiatories and sealings.  I hadn't done initiatories since my own Endowment, so it was a nice refresher.  I have been surprised much over the last almost five years since going to the temple how much not just what I think has changed, but how I think.  Its been difficult for me to pinpoint exactly why that is as I have gone and done more Endowment sessions, since much of what is presented in the Endowment is not new information.  Perhaps I see it differently than I once did, but the knowledge itself isn't terribly different than what I knew before.  Hearing the promises of the initiatory ordinances made it suddenly clear why the way I think has changed so very much.  

All of the names that we did work for, both in the initiatory ordinances and the sealing ordinances, were names Katy had found in her genealogy.  One of the women I did work for was a Hyde--Doug's middle name.  It was kind of fun to feel some connection to the people I was serving.  When we went into the sealing room, Katy and Chuck started out doing the few couple sealings she had found that needed to be done.  When it was time to begin sealing children to parents, the sealer asked if "that pretty young lady you were sitting next to" was a member of their family.  Katy said, "Yes, she's our daughter-in-law".  I went up to sit in place of the daughters as we sealed all these women to their parents, and I thought about the difference between what the state defines as a family member, and what "family" really means to me.  In the eyes of the law, Katy is my mother-in-law and Chuck is my stepfather-in-law--not necessarily very strong bonds.  But Katy is sealed to Chuck, and to Doug, and I am sealed to Doug.  We are all caught together in a big, beautiful and eternal web.  We were offering that same comfort and blessing to generations of others--binding them together in the glorious celestial threads that hold us all together forever.  

The people we were acting in behalf of weren't just a random pile that the temple had assigned us--they were Katy's family, and by extension, my own.  I was performing a service that, in effect, widened my own family circle.  It is true that every act of service we perform eventually blesses us as well as those we serve, but nowhere is the blessing so immediate as in temple service.  There are still some missing links in our chain, but hopefully eventually those will be filled as well.  The promises, protections and rewards of an eternal sealing--husband to wife and parent to child--are pretty much too incredible to fully comprehend.  Every time that I do sealings, I'm grateful that my children were born into this world under the protection of that covenant and I'm grateful that so many people are working so hard to find the names of those who weren't so that the work can be done and that blessing can be extended to every family.  Because forever is an awfully long time to be alone.