Heaven for Me

 My entire life I imagined that receiving my temple endowment would be automatically linked to the anticipation of an up and coming marriage. I felt as though there was a distinct pattern that was to be followed without deviation, and that there would never be any reason in my life to go through the temple alone. In my mind the endowment was a means to an end (the end being marriage) rather than an end in and of itself. Maybe that was just wishful thinking, maybe that was ancillary culture rather than doctrine clouding my mind. 

But the influence of my dear friend Jenna inspired me to challenge my own preconceived notions. I think Jenna was the first (though not the last as of late) of my friends to go through the temple for herself without the reason of a mission or a marriage. She wrote about the experience on her own blog, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. I was not ready at the time to enter into the temple, but it touched me with the faintest hint of maybe. 

Last fall, I was beginning to feel an emptiness, a sense of needing something, but not quite certain what it was that I lacked. Before the General Women's Session of conference, I had been praying to know what I needed in my life, what changes I needed to make, and it was one of the very rare times in my life where I feel I received a very obvious answer to prayer. Talk after talk, and song after song, the answer was go to the temple, go to the temple, get your endowment. I struggled with the prompting at first because I had always wanted to wait for a marriage to be in sight, but I knew to wait would be foolish and to wait was not necessary. The endowment would be for me, and I desperately needed something for me.This was right, this was what I was missing. 

Although along with my long-held vision of entering the temple for the first time with a fiance, for some reason I also imagined it to be a very private affair. Perhaps only him (whoever he is) and my parents, no one else. I had never wanted my endowment day to be a big event with lots of siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. no matter how much I loved them. However, when I was given my recommend, I could not bear the thought of being there without my family. I still did not want many people there for such a sacred day, but I knew I wanted my siblings with me and I realize now how empty that day would have felt without them. My siblings made tremendous sacrifices to support me and I couldn't be more grateful to them. Being surrounded by them, each of us dressed in white is the most beautiful and peaceful image I have in my life. Nothing can compare to those incredibly sacred moments with my parents and my brother and sisters in the temple. In short, it was Heaven for me. 

"I don't know how to speak about Heaven in the traditional, lovely, paradisaical beauty that we speak of Heaven--I wouldn't know how to speak of Heaven without my wife or my children; it would not be Heaven for me." -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland