sealed for time and all eternity

remember this post where i had a little side not of today's date? well, here it is.

what most people don't know is, when brian and i met, he had been married before. in fact, the day we met, his divorce was final three days prior. so i had no interest what so ever. i was not about to get involved with a man who had freshly been divorced. because everyone needs time to heal and move on, and i knew he wasn't ready to date or move on.

we were friends. we developed such a great friendship, we could be open and honest about anything to one another. when i learned the reason for his divorce, it showed me what a wonderful man he was. he was married in the temple. and to not go into great detail on the reasons that led to the divorce, it did show me how much integrity this man possessed. he tried to make it work for five years when so many bad things, on her part, were happening. i thought "wow, with all this drama from her, you still believe in forgiveness and working things out?"

we both came from terrible relationships prior to meeting. when we met, we saved one another. we showed one another what it really means to truly love the other. this strong friendship built on communication and trust and love, turned into falling in love.

so when we finally wanted to get married, in the temple no doubt, we had to get permission to do so. this happens when one person has previously been married in the temple before. {email me and i would love to explain more if you are like what in the??} letters had to be written from all parties involved. when the ex sent hers it was one line. one. line. which needed to go in a bit more detail. for whatever reason, we don't know why, we were denied to be married in the temple. we followed the counsel of our stake president to get married civilly. a year from that date of marriage, we would be able to be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. not just for time.

we wanted our entire family to be there for the special event. at the time, we lived in salt lake city, utah. so we went to my hometown of louisville kentucky, during Christmas time, to be close to my family and his up in michigan so that we could be sealed after Christmas.

today, eight years ago, we were sealed in the Louisville Kentucky Temple for time and eternity. finally! when we were married civilly, we agreed as a couple to not try to get pregnant until after we were sealed in the temple. we wanted our children to come to our family while we had been sealed for eternity. a few weeks before our one year anniversary of being married {and two months before going to the temple to be sealed} is when we found brian's cancer lump.

so we have had people, who don't know our full story, say "don't you wish you had tried to have a baby before he had cancer?" and we explain. "our goal, was to wait until we were married for time and all eternity. temple marriage is such an important thing to us. when we couldn't do it, we did plan b and got married in a church. starting our family was so important to us, that we wanted to be sealed first. we don't know if we would have been able to get pregnant before brian was diagnosed with testicular cancer in september 2004. but we do know the importance of eternal families."

happy eight years of being an eternal family! it was one of the best days of our lives. to know that we will be together forever. the day we have our children sealed to us, will be just as sacred, if not more.

december 28, 2004