Family Forever

                Families are strengthened by being sealed together by proper authority for time and all eternity.  Parents and children feel greater security knowing they are sealed together for eternity.  Sealed parents also feel a greater need to make their marriage work and to keep their children close, but they do not fear death because they understand the meaning of being together forever.

                How does a family become sealed?  They must first be baptized and confirmed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and prove their faithfulness by obedience to the commandments of God.  The parents – a man and a woman, legally and lawfully married – are first sealed to each other.  If the couple is sealed before any children are born, the children are born in the covenant.  If the children are born before the parents are sealed, the children must be sealed to their parents.

                The sealing power is given to a very small number of high priests, and these men must live righteous lives in order to retain the power and authority of their office.  The only places on earth where couples and families can be sealed are the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  “Temples are literally houses of the Lord.  They are holy places of worship where the Lord may visit.  Only the home can compare with temples in sacredness….

                “Another temple ordinance is celestial marriage, in which husband and wife are sealed to one another for eternity.  A sealing performed in the temple continues forever if the husband and wife are faithful to the covenants they make.

                “Children born to parents who have been sealed in the temple are born in the covenant.  These children automatically become part of an eternal family.  Children who are not born in the covenant can also become part of an eternal family once their natural or adoptive parents have been sealed to one another.  The ordinance of sealing children to parents is performed in the temple.”  (See True to the Faith, pp. 170-171.)

                Deceased couples and families can also be sealed in the temple by proxy.  Members of the LDS Church do family history work in an effort to gather as many family members as possible and to link parents and children together for as many generations as possible.

                I am a member of a multi-generation sealed family.  My parents and their parents as well as other ancestors and their children have been sealed together as one big family, some as far back as the 1500s.  The sealing work is done whenever we can find the information on our ancestors.  They of course do not have to accept the work and can reject the blessings, but hopefully they do not make this choice.  Most of my children have also made the decision to be sealed to their spouse and children.

                A friend of mine recently did the temple work for her parents; she acted as proxy for her mother and her husband was proxy for her father during the sealing ceremony for her parents.  Then she was sealed to her parents.  I asked her if she felt any different after the sealing, and she indicated that she did.  Her feeling was one of greater security.  Then she told me that she can tell by looking at a family if they are sealed together because their feelings of security are apparent to her.    

                I encourage all of my readers to take the necessary steps to become sealed to their parents, spouse, and children.  The sealing power brings many blessings into the lives of individual family members and to families as a whole.  Sealed families bring great strength to their communities and nations.