There is no greater religion that I have ever come across that values free agency more than ours. My husband is intellectually oriented , very well educated, and he has thought for years, certainly before I met him and at the beginning of our married life together, that religion shuts down on a person’s thinking. And I say that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the opposite. It is all embracing of truth. It is freeing. We may question anything. We can go to the Lord to think about God, about a Mother in Heaven, that I am the spiritual offspring of God. That their godly DNA is my DNA. My essence is God’s essence. How utterly phenomenal is that?
I think of prayer and I’m not formalized. I don’t have a ritual. I rarely pray on my knees. I pray a lot all day. It’s just talking to my Father in Heaven. It’s just saying, when a child comes to me and is stressed about something, at that moment I just say to the Lord, “Please help me! Help me to say and do what you want me to do.” I feel that we are in his stead. Even changing diapers. I remember braiding my daughter’s hair and thinking that I was doing the Lord’s work. He was not there to braid her hair, but I was. I can do this in love and kindness just as he would.
So really being intimate with the Savior is just fundamental. He’s not far away.
For instance going to the temple. I will walk into the inside of the temple in jeans or in a sweat suit. I play a lot of tournament tennis. I have my racket in the car. I have my temple dress. I know that people will look askance. Here comes somebody in sweat pants and tennis shoes, but I would change in the outer bathroom, before you show your recommend because I know that there are people who would be offended and I do not want to offend anyone. So my temple dress and bag would be in the car. I would be out in Bellevue near the temple, so I would just go. I’ve heard women say in Relief Society that it’s just like a date with the Lord. You want to shower, shave your legs, get dressed, do all of this preparatory stuff and for them that works. at’s great. at’s just great. It works for them. For me, I do not care about the way I’m dressed. If I have slippers and a flower in my hair, I’m dressed. I never knew that there were seasons when you couldn’t wear white pants past Labor Day. Little things like that are just outside my ken