A Long Time Coming (part 2)

The day before Cindy Lynn's wedding I had a meltdown. A PMS enhanced meltdown. A total meltdown. It was not pretty.

To give you an example of how bad it was...We stayed at my dad's house the night before leaving for Rexburg. My dad moved in February, and this was only the 2nd time I had been to his new house. I needed to go run some errands, and as I pulled out of my dad's driveway I started to cry. Why? Because I was pretty sure I was not going to know how to get back to my dad's house. I could see myself driving in circles the rest of the morning trying to find my way back. I didn't even know his address!

Thanks to some dear friends who lent sympathetic ears and let me cry on their shoulders, and after a lovely motorcycle ride with my dad, I felt ready again to face all of the last minute details and traveling that awaited me.

Later that day I got an e-mail from another friend. It said something that penetrated the fog of my overwhelmedness.

The only important thing between now and tomorrow night is what happens in the temple - and you don't have to do anything for that. So try to find some joy in the journey.

I've read many times that too much time is spent planning a wedding and not enough time planning the marriage. I thought that comment applied only to brides and grooms! But I realized that I had spent so much time thinking about, planning, and sewing for the wedding that I had spent almost zero time thinking about the ordinance of marriage.

So I thought about it. Or at least I tried to. But quite honestly, I had no thoughts. The combination of crying and motorcycle riding and overwhelmed and lots left to do must have sucked up all of my functioning brain cells.

Later I told Russ about the e-mail and asked him, "so what are you thinking and feeling about this?" He admitted that he wasn't thinking or feeling very much either. So I tucked my questions into the back of my brain and went on with the show.

Every now and then over the next day I pulled out those thoughts and looked at them to see if I had figured anything else. But I never had.

Before the wedding all I was thinking & feeling was stressed about trying to get everyone in our family ready in one hotel room.

During the wedding I was wondering if I was going to cry, appreciating the advice given to Cindy Lynn & Mahon, and thinking about my own wedding day so many years ago.

During the picture taking I was just so happy that I wasn't taking the pictures and that it wasn't windy anymore.

During the luncheon I was cold, and enjoying hanging out with Russ's siblings whom we don't see very often.

After the luncheon I was wishing I could take a nap while I added last minute pictures and videos into the wedding slideshow.

And during the reception I was busy talking, talking, talking.

Never was there a moment during the whole day that I really felt able to take time to think about the temple ceremony. I assumed that I just needed to wait until after the festivities were over, and then, like magic, I would be able to see that I had indeed felt deeply and profoundly about this most sacred ordinance of marriage.

But no.

Instead, Russ & I had a lovely escape the day after the wedding. And spent the next day surrounded by all of his family as we celebrated the impending mission of one of the nieces. And then Russ & Josh flew home while Jason, the little kids, and I spent the next 5 days driving back to NC. No, not a lot of time for introspection.

Our first week back in North Carolina was part coma and part whirlwind. The coma from all of the traveling, and the whirlwind because 6 days after we got back Rachel, Jenna, and Jared were getting baptized, and 7 days after we got back was the NC reception for Cindy Lynn and Mahon.

The afternoon of the baptism was particularly hectic. I had actually (for once) planned the timing of everything very carefully--but at the last minute someone else's plans changed and it threw off all of my timing. Suddenly my relatively orderly afternoon became hurried and stressful.

It wasn't until the baptism itself that I was able to switch gears from being stressed & hurried to truly being in the moment. I stood on one side of the baptismal font with Rachel and Jenna, watching Jared walk down into the water with Jason, who was going to baptize him. As I watched Jason take Jared's arm and prepare to recite the baptismal prayer, I finally felt something.

My heart was filled with love for my beautiful children who were standing there dressed in white. For my three little children who were both sober and excited about this important choice they were making. And for my sixteen year old son, for whom this was such a momentous occasion.

But I also had such a feeling of gratitude for the restored gospel, and for the knowledge that the power of God is on the earth today. I felt amazed to know that my son and my husband can trace their line of priesthood authority back to Joseph Smith and through him to John the Baptist.

And I finally knew how I felt about what had happened in the temple the week before.

I felt such joy that we know that marriages sealed with the proper authority can last beyond this lifetime. Such joy knowing that I can be with my wonderful husband forever--and that our children are sealed to us as well.

In retrospect, I can see wisdom in the Lord's timing. Things that are a long time coming make a much greater impact when they finally do arrive...