Temples

I remember when my brother in law, Todd Smith, was project manager working on the Gilbert, AZ temple. He had said he would have given his "big toe" to be involved in building a temple. His friends in the construction industry warned him that temples were notorious for construction headaches as everything had to be beyond perfect. Sure enough, during the process things were having to be redone over and over.They kept ripping stuff out cuz it wasn't perfect. Drywall, tile, and then when they did that to the absolutely stunning stairs that reminded me of the staircase from the "titanic", I was actually a little disgusted. "WHY all the focus on perfection when life on earth is SO far from perfect, I wondered?"We had been dealing with our health problems. Lauren with autism and psychosis, Alyssa with Tourette's and Syd was bordering on a catatonic state even as they were building the Gilbert temple. Anyhow, we were supposed to go on a special tour before the public was allowed into the Gilbert temple. I kinda didn't want to go as I was struggling to understand the whole "perfection" thing with temple building when my life was anything but perfect. I went anyway. There was no way I was going to disappoint my sister and brother in law who had given so much time to the project. There I was, a disgruntled tour member just praying to get through . When I was by the baptismal font and they were talking about the tile that had been laid and then ripped out then laid again, I said a prayer in my heart. "Why God? Was that absolutely necessary? And why did the pioneers have to crush their finest China to put in the walls of the temple? Couldn't they have just met on top of a mount like Sinai and called it good enough?" And then the HG spoke to my heart and said, "No material on earth will or ever be good enough for a temple. It's because the temple symbolizes how God feels about his children. How he feels about the human soul, and no material on earth can ever match his love for you". 
I bawled the rest of the tour and was amazed that I had no idea of the depth of the love God carried for His children. 
As we get ready to build the Lone Mountain temple I go by the plot a lot on my bike rides. I feel my heart is ready for the project. I feel my soul is OK with the repouring of concrete, the reordering of tile from Turkey, the replastering of drywall cuz I know the secret of temples. "No material on earth will ever be good enough to match the "love" or "hesed"(Hebrew for God's love) that He has for the human soul.

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