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A Place To Heal

Six years ago, my father and two of my sisters were involved in a head-on traffic collision on the way home from a ski trip. Miraculously, my sisters, ages 16 and 20 at the time, walked away from the crash with minor injuries, but my father ended up in hospital 3 hours away for 3 weeks. He sustained internal injuries and required surgery on his upper bowel and on a shattered ankle. It was the first time he had ever been in the hospital. After the surgery, the doctors couldn’t get his bowels working for several days. It was a very serious and scary time for our family. He pulled through just fine, after many months of recovery, but still walks with a limp occasionally and experiences pain.

Ironically enough, that very day I had just finished writing a song called “A Place To Heal”, a song about the temple. I told my dad I wrote a song about the hospital and he thought that was funny! Indeed, the hospital was where he needed to be for healing, and the temple was where I was reminded that whatever happens, we were a forever family. Because of the temple, it was all going to be okay.


I like to view the temple as a sort of “hospital”. It’s a place I like to go to receive spiritual treatment that helps me heal from the internal injuries of life. It blesses me with understanding to the “whys” of life a little better. Covenants bind the wounds and assure me the healing I seek, and serving in the temple is one of the ways I keep those covenants and show gratitude for the blessings of peace I experience by going there.

I find that as I serve by doing temple work for others who have passed on, it’s like I am a volunteer in a hospital helping others to receive their spiritual treatments. These treatments come in the form of covenant making and further light and knowledge. I am taught by the Great Physician how to better care for my soul and diagnosed of my spiritual ailments.

Because it’s a quiet place where the Lord dwells, but also a place that requires my time and effort, it’s a healing combination. As I visited my father in the hospital during that three-week period of time, I reflected many times on this topic. Besides a “place to seal” it’s a “place to heal”; both incredible gifts in our lives.

When Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, was asked by the Lord to build a ship, he was told to “…Arise, and get thee into the mountain…”. (1 Nephi 17:7) “And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.” (1 Nephi 18:3) It was there, where he was away from his murmuring family, from all distractions, that he was taught and instructed.

As a wife and mother, I appreciate so greatly a place I can go to heal my heart, to fill my well, and come home ready to jump back in the game. I can escape the murmurings of the world, the noise and confusion, leave it outside and step into a part of Heaven. The temple is the EV (eternal value) treatment for my spirit veins. It rejuvenates and rehydrates my thirsting soul and fills me with His living water.




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Sara Lyn Baril is wife to a dashing lawyer named Mark, a mother of five children, ages 5-15 and a published LDS songwriter with one album to her credit. When she isn't drowning in the laundry piles or lost in the mess of her kitchen, you can find Sara gardening in her flower gardens, writing new music or blogging at www.toliftandinspire.blogspot.com.


 
Enjoy shopping for quality baby clothing at TradeTang.com

MMB

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