By Dianne Larsen, Highland 15th
The blessings promised in the temple sealing ordinances fill me with gratitude. I was adopted when I was three days old and sealed to my adoptive parents when I was six months old. I grew up hearing that my birth mother was the special person who brought me to my parents. While attending a temple endowment ceremony when I was a young mom, I felt a strong spiritual prompting to find my birth mother. Through a miraculous series of events, I found her name and learned that my birth mother had died tragically when I was nine years old. I proceeded to piece together my birth family and then began doing the temple work for them.
Some of my most spiritual experiences have been in the temple, acting as proxy for members of my birth family. I recently acted as proxy for 10 of my great aunts and cousins, sealing them to their parents. To kneel at the altar in their place and listen to the promised blessings was overwhelming. The Spirit confirmed to me that the daughters were blessed with all the blessings of the gospel, as if they had been born in the New and Everlasting Covenant. Those words are miraculous to me. I felt as if the blessings were being promised to me, again.
How merciful is our Heavenly Father! He offers us every beautiful blessing. He doesn’t hold anything back. He loves us more than we can comprehend. I feel that love when I perform the temple ordinances for my deceased birth family. It’s a love that I can’t put into words, but I feel it from my head to my toes. I am so grateful for the covenants I’ve made with my Father in Heaven, and for the gift of performing saving ordinances for the birth family that brought me to my eternal family.