This story is part of our A House of God: Women in the Temple collection.
Last year when we were contemplating uprooting our family from Texas and moving back to Utah, I was seeking an answer from the Lord. Our lives were good in Houston. My husband and I had excellent jobs, a home and neighborhood we loved, and many friends who had become like family. All three of our kids had all been born in Texas, and that was all they had ever known. The thought of leaving such familiarity and goodness was unnerving and scary, but we had always had the hope of living closer to family, finding a job with better work/life balance, and letting our kids grow up near the mountains. But there was so much unknown. Would we find a good home in a soaring housing market? Would our neighborhood be a good place to raise our kids? Would we find friends who would be there through thick and thin? Would our jobs be secure? Would I hate winter weather as much as I remember?
As I was seeking an answer about whether or not to move, I felt a lot of inner turmoil. As a bit of a background, there had been multiple occasions in my life where my prayers about important, life-altering decisions had seemed to go unanswered. Despite my best efforts—endless prayers, searching the scriptures, attending the temple, talking with trusted family and friends— I hadn’t felt a confirmation one way or the other. From those experiences, I have learned some important lessons about agency and God’s trust in me, but it is truly terrifying to sometimes be required to step forward into the darkness without the reassurance that the decision you’ve made is a good one.
As I searched for an answer about this opportunity to move to Utah, I kept remembering the times I hadn’t received an answer. I worried that I would once again be left to make a life-changing decision on my own. But I tried to trust. I tried to have faith that an answer could and would come. I tried to do all the things I knew would bring the Spirit. I felt strongly that we needed to go to the temple as a couple. Our Houston temple had flooded during Hurricane Harvey and had been undergoing repairs for several months. I longed to be able to go, but the next-closest temple was a few hours away. Right at the time we needed to make a final decision about accepting a job and moving, our temple was reopened and my husband and I were able to attend one of the first endowment sessions together.
That day in the celestial room of the Houston temple, our prayers were answered in the most remarkable way, like the fitting together of two puzzle pieces. After so many non-answers, this was an answer and a reassurance from my Father in Heaven that I will cherish for the rest of my life. And the inner peace that came with it held our family together as we navigated the stress of selling a house, leaving all that was familiar, driving halfway across the country, living out of suitcases for nine months while awaiting a more permanent situation, switching our kids’ schools twice, starting three new jobs between the two us, receiving the news that the job my husband had taken could potentially lay him off just a few months after he started, and just having life be overwhelming in general. The answer we had received in the temple was a hopeful and stabilizing force during a hectic and uncertain time. I knew my Father in Heaven knew me and was keenly aware of our situation and needs.