When An Accomplishment Becomes Un-Accomplished, Then What? Part I

 I was blessed to be born and raised in the Latter-day Saint faith.   Born in the covenant to parents who were strong active members.  I have a legacy of ancestors who were instrumental in the early days of the church.   All rich blessings, that while I did not always appreciate,  I now recognize the great honor it is to be in this family.

As a LDS daughter I was taught all the principles and virtues of keeping yourself clean and pure and preparing to one day enter the House of the Lord to make sacred covenants.  All little girl have a version of a Cinderella story.  LDS girls are no different.  Our's just takes a path unique to our culture.  A path that involves the goal of entering into a temple to be sealed for time and all eternity to the man of our dreams.

So yeah, I had a plan, a story I wrote years ago.  It involved someone tall and handsome, a beautiful white dress, and family watching on as I kneeled across the alter from the man I wanted to be with for ever.

The real version did involve someone tall and handsome.  Just not the white dress, or the temple or the family.  It was a quiet ceremony, just the two of us.  I was scared to death.  He was a lot of the things I hoped and dreamed for -- except one huge....huge...huge piece.  He was not LDS.

Years before that day that went totally against my plan,  I met a guy at work.  He walked into my office expecting to speak to someone else.  Instead, he got me.  As he stood there staring at me, a voice, I'd long since recognized, said to me, 'You will marry him one day.'

Of course I thought I was an idiot for thinking that. (Those kinds impressions I automatically discount the first time even if I recognize the source, because they seem so unbelievable.)  Of course I doubted and questioned.  He wasn't LDS and that was one of the boxes that needed checked off.  Actually, it was the very first box on the list.

I filed away that little message and went on about my life.  I was busy working several jobs at the time.  I was busy making a life for myself when this man came into my world.  At first, nothing happened between us, making it easier to discount the message.  Before too long, an opportunity presented itself for us to talk.  That was the beginning.

I skipped past a couple other boxes on my list too.  The one for the temple was another huge one to overlook.  Skipping those two big important factors to have in a companion was hugely upsetting to my parents.  They were very unhappy with me and my choices.  I was a return missionary, for pete's sake.  Still, that message from many, many months earlier hung heavy on my heart.  Prayers that I offered also pointed me to this man that was missing the pieces to check off all those important boxes on my list.

We married anyway, in a little chapel in Lake Tahoe.  The missing pieces of a familiar temple sealing that I'd witnessed others make were noticeably absent -- for me only.  Still, I felt good about the decision and was determined to love this man and create a beautiful and happy home with him.

It didn't quite work out like I thought it might.  It took years of patience and doubt and prayers and temple sessions by myself before H joined the church.

And then everything went down hill from there.

I spent the next 4 years asking God why?  Why did you tell me that I would marry him?  And why would you send me down this path of pain and addiction (though I didn't call it that then) and betrayal?

Fast forward a few years, past a lot of pain, and almost divorcing,  the pieces of the puzzle finally fall into place and my dream of all dreams finally came true.  With my mom and dad looking on, I knelt across the alter in the Nauvoo temple to be sealed to my husband of more than 11  years, and our two children.

I'm not sure if its just that I don't have good dreams or if it is more that I need to learn life lessons through very difficult circumstances.  That dream of mine has been dashed so many times as addiction and serial cheating became the cross our marriage bore.

Now instead of celebrating 11 years of being sealed together as an eternal family, an important piece of that sealed unit had his blessing stripped from him last month.

Here I am today, embarking on an anniversary of what should have been a sweet reminder of promises and covenants and I'm sealed to someone who is no longer known upon the records of the church.




The day is bittersweet.  H will be home in a few minutes.  D is shuttled off to other caregivers and we will try to celebrate the day in spite of all broken pieces.

   Marriage can be mended.  Priesthood blessing can be restored.

But today, pieces of me feel sad on a day when I should be giddy like a new bride.