Latter-day Saint Life

Feeling Pain in the Temple: How One Single Sister Overcame It

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As a Primary child I sang:

“I love to see the temple, I’ll go inside someday– to covenant with my Father; I’ll promise to obey. For the temple is a Holy Place – where we are sealed together. As a child of God, I know this truth: a family is forever.” . . . I was taught that temples = families and marriages.

As I grew older and remained unmarried, the temple became a place of sadness; a place where I was reminded of what I lacked rather than what I was given; a place of remorse rather than of peace. My initial excitement for the temple became avoidance (especially on Saturday mornings when I was sure to see many happy brides).

I wanted to love the temple, I wanted to feel peace, I wanted to commune with God. But I was distracted by the heavy Sunday School rhetoric that joined the temple with the eternal family I didn’t have.

The Angel Moroni

I persisted in my attendance with a determination to find solutions, albeit less frequently. One day as I walked toward the white spires, I noticed the angel Moroni – at the very top – all alone. “Well”, I thought, “he’s alone (maybe even single) and he’s here.” It gave me a bit of a lift as I went in. Later that night, I read about Moroni in Mormon 8:5. “And behold, I would write if I had room, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone. My father hath been slain in battle, and all my kinsfolk, and I have not friends nor whither to go; and how long the Lord will suffer that I live I know not.”

Lead image from iStock.
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