Preparing Drop by Drop

Dear Sisters,

A few years back, when I lived in Moscow, Idaho, we had to travel about 2 hours to get to the Spokane, Washington Temple.  

It took a lot of planning, scheduling, and coordinating.  We would usually try to find a couple to trade with us, while we switched off watching kids and attending sessions.  We had to pack food, schedule a room in the church next door so we had a “home-base”, and prepare for naps.  Basically, it was an all day affair, but it was always such a spiritual feast when we did make the sacrifice to attend.  Aren’t we blessed to have a temple so close?!

As I was thinking back on those times, I remembered one time that was pretty unforgettable for me.  I had worked very hard to coordinate a temple trip with eight other couples.  It took a lot of planning and effort, and during the last couple minutes of the drive, I stressfully checked my bag, pulling out my temple recommend, only to find that it had expired 3 days prior.  I was crushed!  I felt like I had worked hard to get there, and now I had come all that way, and wouldn’t be able to go.  I spent the day tending children, and I was glad I could help the other couples, but I also felt a little sorry for myself.  

As I watched these couples, and my own husband enter the temple doors, I was reminded of the parable of the ten virgins found in Matthew 25.  Maybe it was a little dramatic to think of it like that, but I really felt like I was being shut out and left behind.

I think it is interesting that in this parable, it makes it clear that all of the virgins remembered to bring their lamps, even the five foolish virgins; however, they “took no oil with them.”  And when they were told that the bridegroom was coming, even those foolish virgins trimmed their lamps to prepare.  It was just in that last crucial moment that they realized they hadn’t prepared enough and had no oil for their lamps.

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I’m sure you are familiar with the rest of the parable.  While they were rushing to buy oil, the bridegroom came.  Those that were ready, went with him and “the door was shut.”  And when the foolish virgins tried to enter, he said, “I know you not.”

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My experience at the temple, reminded me that I needed to prepare myself spiritually as well as temporally for attending the temple, and especially for the Savior’s coming.  I don’t ever want to be cut off, shut out, or left behind.  I committed that I would never let my recommend expire again, and I am blessed every day that I try to serve, keep my covenants, and study the gospel to add oil to my lamp. 

“Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh."

Just as we are reminded in that scripture, we don’t know when the Savior will come again, but it may not be far off.  The simple, kind, good things we do add oil to our lamps and prepare us for the second coming, and for attending the temple, His Holy House. 

“Attendance at sacrament meetings adds oil to our lamps, drop by drop over the years. Fasting, family prayer, home teaching, control of bodily appetites, preaching the gospel, studying the scriptures—each act of dedication and obedience is a drop added to our store. Deeds of kindness, payment of offerings and tithes, chaste thoughts and actions, marriage in the covenant for eternity—these, too, contribute importantly to the oil with which we can at midnight refuel our exhausted lamps.”

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), Faith Precedes the Miracle(1972), 256.

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Sisters, add some oil to your lamps this week!  I love you!

Sincerely,

Lydia