1. A temple trip is an all-day experience.
When we go to the temple, it is an all-day experience rather than something that is done and over in a couple of hours. What a blessing it is to be able to focus on something so spiritual and wonderful for an entire day!
2. We get to share the experience with our children.
Because it is such a long trip to the temple, we often take them with us. Sometimes we will stay overnight in the temple apartments, and sometimes we'll go down and Jim and I will take turns doing a session while the other one watches the kids. Either way, we our taking our children with us, so they get to share in the feelings and blessings of the temple grounds.
3. Our children witness our sacrifice.
Our children know that it is a sacrifice to take the entire day and spend the gas money and the money for apartments if we stay there. They know that for us, taking that time away from projects we need to do, or other activities that we would like to do is a sacrifice. But, when we sacrifice to go to the temple, it shows them how important it is to us. That is a wonderful thing for a child to know. Plus, it opens up the opportunity to talk about the temple.
4. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the blessing.
I truly believe that the Lord blesses us for each sacrifice that we make . And if our sacrifice is great, then I believe that the blessing will be great. The Lord is good, and if we follow the commandments and direction that He gives us, then he will happily bless us.
I am grateful for the better understanding that I received about the blessings of it being so far away. But, mostly, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to go to the temple. I dearly love being there.
2 comments:
I loved reading this post Celese! I really feel the same way as you about having the Temple 3 hours away (even though I had never known anything different). Taking the kids, leaving town for a full day...Now we live only an hour away, but because of our experiences in CA, we haven't changed how we feel about it. We still make it an all day trip. We still take the kids with us each time. Having the Temple farther away taught us a lot and I'm glad to realize that those lessons are still ingrained in our family. Thanks for the reminder! With Trevor's accident it has been so long since we've been to the Temple...I am anxiously awaiting the day we can go again!
This is so true! I feel the same way. Even though it is so hard to go sometimes we are blessed for doing so. We are making and effort this year to go every other month. With furloughs it will be even more difficult, but I told my husband we really need to!
Post a Comment