Church yesterday was so inspiring to me! I visited my parent's ward and, as I always do there, I felt deeply moved by the effort and diligence the teachers put into their callings. Yesterday's lessons in both Sunday School and RS went hand-in-hand, both teaching in depths the importance of the family and the roles of each member. I love this topic! I believe it to be a source of comfort!
While listening to the subjects of eternal families, touched on in both classes, a phrase came to my mind. It was one that I had learned earlier this year while taking some Marriage and Family Classes taught by an LDS author in our community. He invited a guest speaker one week who came to teach us about "Celestial Marriage". During this class he said something profound that has stuck in my mind ever since. He said something like this: "Our goal is to become celestial beings. It is what we all want. It is what we are working for. We all know that. But becoming celestial isn't something that happens once we walk through the pearly gates. We don't say 'I tried, Lord, but this or that got in the way of loving my spouse celestially.' In order to become celestial, we must first begin loving each other celestially here on earth. We must treat each other celestially here on earth, here in this life. We must treat our children and our spouses as we would if we already lived in the Celestial Kingdom. We must help each other recognize their potential to become celestial beings and develop that celestial love NOW!" (That is a terrible paraphrase, but essentially it is what he said.)
What a profound statement that was! What a revelation! You mean to tell me that I must see my husband as a celestial being when he forgets to take the trash to the road? You mean to tell me that I must treat my children as celestial beings when they are tracking mud through my freshly mopped floor? I must treat my neighbors and my friends and my in-laws and my mailman as if we all lived in the celestial kingdom now? YOU BETCHA!
We don't automatically transform into that frame of mind at the judgement seat. What knowledge we gain here and what habits (good or bad) that we develop here and what perceptions we gain here are all that we take with us. In order to have a celestial frame of mind before Christ on that critical day, we must develop a celestial love and a celestial relationship here. Now. With whom we have contact with. Here.
So, in other words, if you want to be exalted to the Celestial Kingdom, you must treat your spouse as a celestial being...NOW. You must treat your children as celestial beings...NOW. You must see yourself as a celestial being...NOW, (for how we view ourselves is so very reflective in our outward relationships.) If you have a desire to be exalted in the very sense, if you want to live in the highest degree of glory, if you want to live eternally as a family in the presence of Christ, reflect that in the love that you show for others.
1 comment:
Great thoughts Audrey! Thanks for sharing. It makes me think I should spend some more time updating my own blog. Not that there would be much inspiring there, but perhaps it would help me untangle my own brain.
That guest speaker didn't happen to be Matthew Richardson did it? He was a seminary teacher of mine and gave a seminar on "The Celestial Form of Marriage" at BYU. He is now in the General Sunday School Presidency.
Anyway, your comments reminded me of the closing section from C.S. Lewis' essay, "The Weight of Glory." He touches on exactly what you've mentioned here. I've really be struggling with this concept lately. I frequently fail to view others as celestial beings, and I certainly struggle to see myself that way sometimes.
I hope you don't mind, but here is an excerpt from that essay I think you might enjoy.
"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour [or spouse]. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities...that we should conduct all our dealings with one another.... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.... But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat--the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."
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