Sealing Power

I have been filled with good intentions to post something since this weekend, but time has gotten away from me. I can't believe it's Wednesday already. I had a great weekend filled with time spent with my family!! My sister and my nieces stopped in on their way down to Utah from Washington on Friday and stayed all weekend. She stayed at a friend's house that we knew from Montana. It was fun to spend time with all of them (my sister and the girls and our family friend). Then on Saturday I took my sister and nieces to this candy store that specializes in 'vintage' candies and other such oddities. We found quite the variety of treats and doled them out accordingly. :) It was a priceless experience with my sister as we picked up treat after treat and remembered the memory related it and the person who enjoyed it. I love experiences like that, that can stir in you something deeper than with any of the five senses. This store was one of those places.

After we finished at Powell's, we went and met more family that had come into town. My parents, grandparents and one of my nephews came up for a temple sealing. My cousin, who was married a year ago civily, was sealed in the Boise, Idaho Temple. It was a beautiful experience: one where the Spirit deepens your understanding of truth and gives you back perspective that can sometimes be lost living "in the world". The sealer said something that I hadn't thought about in respects to the difference between a civil marriage and a sealing in the temple. He spoke of the civil marriage my cousin & his wife had received a year ago. He said they were married with a stipulation for divorce. After he spoke those words, I played over in my mind the words spoken when someone is married civily, trying to figure out where it talks about a divorce. He then explained it further: the divorce stipulation is at death; you marry knowing that you will be seperated when one or both of you die. In contrast to the sealing ordinance that can only be performed in the temple by someone who has the proper authority to bind in heaven what is done on earth.

President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve said "The sealing power represents the transcendent delegation of spiritual authority from God to man. The keeper of that sealing power is the Lord’s chief representative here upon the earth, the President of the Church. That is the position of consummate trust and authority.
As has been said, much of the teaching relating to the deeper spiritual things in the Church, particularly in the temple, is symbolic. We use the word keys in a symbolic way. Here the keys of priesthood authority represent the limits of the power extended from beyond the veil to mortal man to act in the name of God upon the earth. The words seal and keys and priesthood are closely linked together.
The keys of the sealing power are synonymous with the keys of the everlasting priesthood. “When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? …
“And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
“And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:13–19).
Peter was to hold the keys. Peter was to hold the sealing power, that authority which carried the power to bind or seal on earth or to loose on earth and it would be so in the heavens. Those keys belong to the President of the Church—to the prophet, seer, and revelator. That sacred sealing power is with the Church now. Nothing is regarded with more sacred contemplation by those who know the significance of this authority. Nothing is more closely held. There are relatively few men who have been delegated this sealing power upon the earth at any given time—in each temple are brethren who have been given the sealing power. No one can get it except from the prophet, seer, and revelator and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." The Holy Temple, Boyd K. Packer, Ensign Feb 1995, 32

I made a decision a long time ago that I would accept nothing less than a temple marriage when I marry, as I know that is the way God intended our families to be. We can be bonded together where 'moth and rust doth not corrupt' (Matthew 6:19, 3 Nephi 13:19). I was reminded of another aspect of those beautiful promises at my cousin's wedding, cementing firmer my foundation of a marriage built on such foundings. I hope we all have that same goal for those who have yet to attain it, and I congradulate those of you who have made that choice. There is no greater blessing in this life.