Sealed!

More than twenty years ago, the summer I was fifteen, I sat in the nursery at the Washington DC LDS temple, waiting for my parents to get married. That isn't true, exactly, since they'd been married for nearly twenty years at the time, but a year after we joined the LDS church, they had the opportunity to be "sealed" to each other "for time and all eternity," to covenant to each other that they wanted their relationship to extend beyond the bounds of death.

After they were sealed to each other, they brought the kids into the room, and we were sealed together as a family. I'd heard that temple sealing rooms had mirrors facing each other where you could stand together and "look into eternity" but I was so caught up by the solemnity of the service and the whiteness of the room and being overwhelmed by this moment in my life that I don't remember looking in the mirrors.

Seven years later, in a sealing room in the Salt Lake Temple, Ed and I were married. When Bryce, Annie, Isaac, and Maren were born, they were "born in the covenant," sealed to us upon the moment of their births because we were married in the temple prior to their arrival.

But Rose was born on the other side of the world, and we had the blessing of becoming her family when she was eleven months old. So last Saturday, we found ourselves once again in a temple sealing room, with all of our five children gathered around us, as Rose became our daughter, not just for this life, but for eternity. It was a sweet moment for all of us, and here are a few pictures, courtesy of my talented friend Scott Morris.