Once upon a time when I was about 17 or 18, my parents received their temple recommends. It was such a special, neat thing, that I decided I would take them and pay for them to purchase their temple clothes for early Mother’s and Father’s day gifts.
While they were busy getting fitted, I was wandering around the store looking at the racks upon racks of temple dresses. I was daydreaming about what mine would look like when it was my turn.
Then I found it.
It was a very simple dress. I am honestly not really sure what about it caught my eye. It was very plain, just a white dress with a flower design around the collar, it was slightly expensive, so it was bound to be unique, and it seemed timeless. I was in love. I looked at the tag, and the dress was called “The Alicia”. It was like it was meant to be!
(This is the picture I found of it on the internet by Googling “Alicia Temple Dress”)
Do you see what I mean?? It really is nothing special, but somehow it found a way into my heart.
Matt and I were married 8 years ago. The whole reason we weren’t married in the temple in the first place, wasn’t because of any serious mistake either of us had made, it was really more of a misunderstanding first, and then when we did get approval, it was too late, we had given up already. A year after we were married, we were living the way we needed to live to get into the temple. And then we moved into my mother’s basement for a month until we could move into our apartment. We asked our bishop if we could just continue to go to that ward since we were less than a month away from getting our recommends, and he said that it wasn’t allowed and that we needed to go to the ward we were living in, no matter how long we were planning to live there. We were crushed. We felt like we had to start all over again. We became inactive, but we never lost our testimonies. We would go through periods where we did really good and were aaaaalmost there, but then something always seemed to happen. There were a few times we had been living the way we needed to live, but we were never granted temple recommends for some reason. It was weird things like bishops asking us to take just one more month to MAKE SURE we were where we needed to be even though we qualified and then we’d move.. and it would all start over. I started feeling like God didn’t want me. I felt like no matter what I did, I was NEVER going to be good enough. For 8 years Matt and I watched as people close to us held temple recommends, yet only visited the temple a few times a year. It was hard not to just take them and shake them while telling them how lucky they were and they didn’t even know it! It was difficult not to get mad at them for not fully appreciating something that Matt and I really had been trying so hard for, but always seemed to be just barely out of reach. And then, I messed up pretty bad. And even as I was repenting, I was constantly thinking to myself “If God didn’t want me then, He will definitely never want me now.” But we started living the way we needed to live, not to get our temple recommends, but because we wanted to live that way. We realized how happy it makes us.
Fast forward to 3 months ago doing temple prep classes with Matt before Makayla was born. I still remembered that dress. And I still loved it. I have talked about it to Matt on several occasions. I looked online to see if they even made it anymore. If you can even still buy it, I’m pretty sure you have to special order it, and even then, they make Small and Extra Small.. Nope! LOL I was slightly bummed, but didn’t worry too much about it. It’s not the dress that is the important part.
Now skip to today. I am going through the temple the first time tomorrow. My mother-in-law wanted to take me today and buy me my temple clothes. I was on the phone chatting and planning with her this morning, when I received a call from my dear friend from the ward, Cathy.
Sunday, while I was at lunch for Makayla’s baby blessing, they announced our amazing news in Relief Society. From what I gather, sisters started offering to let me use extra items for the temple they had lying around for one reason or another. Cathy wanted to know if she could come over right then and let me try some things on to see how they work.
I opened the door to my friend, who was carrying a bag of 3 different dresses and a box. She handed me the dress bag and told me to go try them on to see if any of them would work.
I unzipped the bag and immediately the middle dress stood out.
It was my dress!!!
The dress I wanted years and years ago!!
“The Alicia”!
And it fit perfectly.
I (of course) started crying and ran out to ask Cathy if I could use that one. Her reply was: “Use?? Honey, this is all for you to HAVE!”
In the box were the different pieces I needed all donated from different sisters around the ward. And they all fit perfectly!
I would not trade my used temple clothes for brand new ones in a million years. Whenever I put them on, I am going to remember the love they were given to me with. I am always going to remember the story of how I got them. It is a sweet confirmation to me that God was watching me then. He is still watching me now. And despite all of my mistakes and imperfections, he has forgiven me, and he DOES want me back.
In a previous post, I explained the story of when we got our temple recommends, how unexpected and surprising it was. My bishop “filled me in” on the cool story about what exactly happened to make him send one home with Matt that day, and it makes it even more exciting to know, that with 100% surety, we are going through the temple not just because we “qualify” but because God wants us there.
Tomorrow night can’t possibly come fast enough. I can’t imagine how badly tomorrow is just going to drag by. But I do know, that it will be worth every agonizing second of the wait.
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