OK - I have to admit. The title of this piece was meant for shock-value (picture a short-haired guy in a white shirt and tie, not the Howard Stern type....), but never-the-less, its true.
Due to a snafu that I am still a little sore at my wife about, I did not receive the invitation to my Dad's own (second) sealing until a few days ago - not enough notice to throw my work schedule into disarray and make the trip down to witness a mid-week ceremony in Logan. Still a little sore at my Dad for not making it on a more accessible day like Saturday where I might have played hooky for one day and made it down??
Why all the hubbub? If you read one of my recent previous posts, my Mom was insistent that this day not occur (while she was alive). She had to eat crow and come back after her death to straighten that little detail out. And boy, I cannot wait to find out about the sequence of events that led to her journey back through the veil to deliver that bombshell to Dad.
Anyway, Tuesday is the big day when I have two mommies (no my name is not Heather....or even Heath.....). My Dad seems to be really content with his new companion. I have to say that all I care about is that two people (or three, as the case may be) are happy. I think they will get along handsomely over there - although part of Celestial living is getting along well in the sandbox - so there is not much of an option if that is the end-goal. My Dad is pretty happy-go-lucky - its the ladies I worry about. Both women whom I now will need to call Mother and (proper name of new companion - I cannot give this good woman that title - it is sacred to me, reserved for the one who put her life on the line to bear a 10 pound behemoth through a 10 cm portal to his first breath and this life.... Thank goodness for forceps and flexible cranial plates....), both women are/were a little "catty" and the "jealous" types if I am reading personalities correctly (not judgmental - just observational, here). So, the fur may fly at times - unless there is alot of mellowing as time goes on - as I observed moreso in the life of my mother during her final 10 years. If it is to be a Celestial in nature, there will have to be a complete understanding of stewardship and consecration and true love as God intended it; not the cheap imitation that is peddled and passed off for the genuine article here on this earth. The same love I experienced the night my boy died - in that dream and in one other dream where I was shown something of a heavenly court (I have not shared it - because I still do not fully comprehend it - I may have to get there to fully understand it). A love that saturates you to the very core of your bones; your marrow. A love so encompassing, you realize you don't care about the things of mortality because you would only do what it takes to be wrapped (enveloped - mortal words can't describe it) in that love. So warm - so intense, yet mellow, so golden, so welcoming, so cozy that if you took every amazing mortal experience where you were filled with happiness, joy, love warmth and reduced it over a simmering warm heat to a golden elixir - all that goodness in one spoonful, it would only be a drop of what is over there - and that you are veritably wrapped in its embrace and swimming in it.
So what would you give up for that? I say everything that consumes us in this life would be nothing too great to have that opportunity. I know that God is a God of LOVE - but that He is serious as a heartbeat; and will not be mocked with anything less than our best effort and the sacrifice of all if He requires it of us to prove to ourselves; where we are at in our devotion to His principles - in His fight to save as many children as He will.
With that pure love - and I bear witness of it - any female that is reading this article will be able to bear off those earthly impulses of jealousy and selfishness. I know my mother is in that place - for she came back with my boy that had previously returned to my bedside trailing that heavenly light after he had undoubtedly been to see the Savior - and that I was filled with just a portion of that light as he ministered to me (and his mother) before our hour of Gethsemane pain.
So, sisters, if you are struggling with that doctrine, I urge you to seek after your Maker and ask to be filled with that light and wrapped in that warmth. And when you are, I promise you the bitterness and resentment and doubt will melt away as the hoar frost on a summer morning to reveal healing and an understanding spirit. I promise you that, as I sit here with just a miniscule portion of that spirit burning in my bosom as I recollect my two brushes with the divine.
God lives. I know Joseph Smith was the hallowed mortal who was given the uber-difficult task of restoring all things in this last dispensation of the fullness of times; including that inspired doctrine that will only elevate and lift and perfect each man and woman to their full potential and full stature of spirit. I am grateful for Joseph's courage as I read Section 135 this morning. May the Lord have mercy on those who did not have eyes to see and ears to hear the message of the restoration as He will on those who did the same to Him as he sealed his testimony in His blood according to the principle of the testator. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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