Consecration is a Journey not a Destination

A few years ago my husband and I were at a dinner party with a few friends when one of the husbands there brought up the topic of eternity and how he does not really understand or like the idea. He asked us, “What will happens when we have learned everything there is to learn which will take a loooong time and we do everything there is to do and visited everywhere in the universe there is to visit, then what? What will we do with the rest of eternity. After we have done everything we are suppose to do then, what?”

It was the first time I thought of it that way, I giggled and said I don’t look at eternity that way. I look at it more like laundry. You can clean everything single item in your house but the next day you will have dirty laundry and you will start over again. It may not sound like paradise when you compare heaven to laundry; some might say that sounds more like the the other place. But for me the concept is true. Our work will never be done. Once we have learned what we need to learn and done all we need to do. The next day our duties and responsibilities will require us again.

For me that is what consecration means. It means giving my all that day and the next one starting over again. It may sound exhausting and often it is. That may be why they call this life a refining process. It is the same with marriage. We can’t finish doing all the work there is for marriage. We can’t read that book or take that marriage class and then we will be good for he rest of eternity. It is like dirty laundry. The next day we have to start again. Being kind, serving, sacrificing, forgiving, saying sorry, trying to be better. Consecration is a journey not a destination. This week I went to a my stake conference (regional church meeting) and my stake president (spiritual leader) made a comment that went along perfectly with my thought I shared with our friend those years back. He said marriage is not an event, it is a process. Maybe we should try to look at consecration the preparation for exaltation like that; more like a process and not an event.