Cedar City Temple, 1:34 PM

The information I’m taking in is visceral—it's curtains flowing and catching the light, it's gold leaf hand-painted on the walls. It’s feeling my hands shaking when I have to enter a small room alone; it’s knowing that the woman can see the fear in my eyes even while she blesses me with beautiful things. It’s the otherworldly images on the screen; it’s the strange solemnity with which people make promises. If making a deal with the devil implies neon lights and sins of the flesh, making a covenant with God must mean the stained glass windows and shapeless dresses are on the right track. I’m doing little more than sitting and listening, but my panic rises and falls with the promises and prayers until I am called to the front of the room to prove what I’ve learned through tearful breaths.

Then I am permitted into the celestial room, the holy of holies, the physical space where communing with God is possible. Again, I must walk in alone. Past the enveloping brightness of the room, I can see my entire family waiting to embrace me. But I'm sobbing so hard that people are starting to rise from their penitent bows towards my cries. I go down the line, hugging each person with love and concern in their eyes, wondering how I will ever reconcile this strange place with the God I love. And then my dad hugs me deeper and whispers, “We’re so proud of you,” and I break further because what is there to be proud of and why couldn’t I keep it together and, God, why would you choose to speak to your children through a ceremony full of metaphors that no one can make sense of, not even your prophets, and suddenly I can’t breathe and my whole foundation is crumbling and- and- and I realize I have to return as soon as possible.

So I go back every week for a year. And it doesn’t make sense, but amidst the rituals I can’t understand and the promises I occasionally still wince at making, peace is spoken to my soul. I can feel God’s presence in spite of (and because of) the prayers and promises I’ve finally memorized how to perform. Envy speeds my beating heart whenever I see a friend’s happiness that first time passing through because I remember the traumatized girl her first time in the celestial room. But I’ve also grown to love the ethereal woman who stares back in the mirror with the same ceremonial clothing that broke her a year ago.

Lord, how is it done? My faith hath made me whole. I wish I could understand how it was done.