My Favorite Things About Eternity: A Trilogy. Part Three.

Eternity is incomprehensible to me. It's a pretty big concept to grasp, to make decisions and get through trials with eternity in mind. Every once in a while I have a glimpse into eternity and I'm reminded that things really are bigger than just this life, but that what we do here really is important and that it's not the end. Most of these moments involve my family, which is why I've chosen to write this Eternity Trilogy primarily about them.

Part One was all about my parents, the people who helped me to start out on my wonderful journey into eternity and Part Two introduced you all to my lovely siblings and the families that the older ones have started. I know Kristen has been waiting for Part Three so that you could all hear how wonderful my cousins are. So as to not disappoint her, let me just say right now, Kristen Nelson is one excellent individual. I'm lucky to have an awesome, talented, beautiful, magnanimous cousin like her.

But actually, today's post, the final part of my trilogy, is more about me and the eternity I have ahead of me. One of the teachings of my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is that families can last forever, that these precious relationships we treasure in life don't end with death. I believe in this wholeheartedly. And this isn't just some side belief of our church, but it's really one of the main reasons we're here. Families are an essential part of God's plan, and they are meant to last for an eternity. Multiple eternities, if there is such thing. 

A few weeks ago my dad was telling me how important it is to marry someone who you can love forever. Because even though our families our eternal, my children will someday have spouses and have their own families, and their children will have spouses, and on and on...I'll be able to go and visit my parents on whatever world they're ruling in the eternities (or however that works), but they won't have their children always living with them because their children and their children's spouses will have their own worlds to rule (or whatever we're going to be doing). When their children (a.k.a. my siblings and I) are all grown up and moved out of the house will my parents be happy together living in a house with just the two of them? Yes, they will, and I know that love and happiness will carry on through eternity.

And this is one of my favorite things about eternity: I get to find someone who loves me, who (whom?) I also love, and be with him forever. 

I remember the millions of bajillions of lists that we'd make in Young Women's, my church group of girls ages 12-17, growing up. Lists composed of all the things we wanted to have in our future eternal companion, all of the qualities our special someone needed to have. The first lists included things like, "cute, tall, intelligent, funny, nice," and then, thrown in at the end, something like, "spiritual," to make it not seem so shallow. As I got older my lists would change, both the lists I'd make in church lessons and my own mental lists. If I went back and sorted through all of my old stuff at home I bet I could find at least four such lists, possibly more. Then we'd have lessons about how instead of trying to find the right person we needed to be the right person. This is true. But it's still fun to look back on those lists, even if the lists were impossibly demanding of any young man we could hope to marry. In fact, maybe that's why they're so fun to look back at.

Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. A related tangent. Back to now...Eternity is a wonderful gift, even though I don't fully understand it. It hurts my head sometimes to think about it. I'm excited to spend forever with the man that I choose to love forever, whomever (Or is it whoever? I never know which to use.) he may be. I'm excited to always have someone by my side, to always have someone to talk to, to have someone to serve and love. I'm excited to have children who will, of course, be perfect little angels. I'm excited to progress. 

I assume eternity will come sooner than I think. I'm already going to be graduating from college in a year, and school is something I thought would last forever. Not even close. Today in church someone made the comment that eternity isn't just a future thing. It's now. It's in the past. The life we had before coming to earth was part of eternity, my finals I have to take this week are a part of eternity, and everything I'm going to do in my future, the things that come after death, are also a part of eternity. I'm living my eternity right now, with my parents and my siblings and my friends and, maybe someday soon(er or later), my eternal companion. Eternity rocks, and eternal families are the very most rockingest part.

Another cool thing about eternity? Dinosaurs.