War Torn

I haven’t been to the temple in months, which is shameful because since living in Utah I’ve had 7 temples less than an hour drive and even in California, the Redlands Temple was only 45 minutes away. I honestly have no excuse except that I didn’t make it a priority, and I’m going to work on that. Anyway, since I live in Utah now and have a temple 2 blocks from my work, I decided to wake up early and hit up a 6am session, which I didn’t even know that they did because usually in CA the first session is at like 7:30am. I expect the morning to go smoothly, few people in the session, hopefully I don’t fall asleep but I usually do, and get on my way to work no problem. However, when I get there at 5:40am the parking lot is almost full and the temple is swarming with people. I change my clothes, then ask what time the session gets out. Spoiler alert, it wouldn’t get out until 7:50am and I would probably be late for work, but they offer to let me go do sealings instead, which I accepted because I’ve never done sealings before. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was very taken aback. The room was small and bright, there were several people in the room already and the sealer had a very melodic, soothing, yet authoritative voice. I had always imagined that it would be many people getting sealed at the same time (i.e. two people acting as parents and then as many children as there were, altogether at the same time.) It was much more orderly and efficient. I had never heard the words of the vicarious sealing ordinance before but they were very profound and I had to stop and think about them, what they meant, and what they implied. Honestly, what I was expecting was a quiet, contemplative morning, but instead I was handed a healthy dose of eternal perspective.

I needed that additional eternal perspective when I read that the US started bombing Syria this morning. I have so many complex and controversial feelings about the wars in the Arab world and our involvement in them, and I won’t go into them here because this is not a forum for that, but I’ve been concerned. I’ve had 2 dreams this week that I’ve sent my son off to war, and I’ve talked about it before. The statistical likelihood of my son going into combat is very good. Every generation sends their boys off to fight somewhere, every single one. I can’t imagine that we will be any exception. All I can do is prepare him. Last night we had a little talk, I told him about my dream and he asked “did I come back?” And I told him that I didn’t know, I didn’t get that far. But I asked him, “what is the most important thing in war?” He answered “to hide.” No son, the most important thing in war is to be righteous. Nothing else matters. You could be the best, most well trained soldier there is, but if you are wicked Jesus will not protect you. You could be the worst soldier there is, but if you are righteous Jesus will protect you. You must be righteous, that is the most important thing.” He’s a really good boy, and I’m not scared for him because I know that the pain of death is only felt on this side of the veil, and I know that being alive is not as important as being righteous. I only hope that I can prepare him enough and in the right ways.

I feel every warning and counsel the prophets have ever given echoing back to me saying “if you are prepared, ye shall not fear.”