When we’re endowed, we’re promised a gift of power. I’ve often wondered what kind of power that is. What is it for? What does it even look like?
For me, it looks like sticky notes.
While weathering her whirlwind of a teenage daughter (yours truly), my mom intuited an effective channel: Notes. She learned that I responded eagerly and earnestly to words of affirmation (and, as the stars occasionally aligned, advice.)
She was constantly writing me notes. Notes of encouragement, notes describing how she loved me, notes thanking me for my help, notes with simple reminders.
I’ve kept every single one—from beautiful greeting cards celebrating milestones to scraps of paper snuck into my lunchbox—they’re beyond precious to me. I reread them when I need reassurance of my identity, my capabilities, and the love that is genuinely mine.
Those notes were a layer of love that protected me as I ventured into life to learn.
From them, I learned that relationships fill us with power. A mother’s love is empowering. A spouse’s trust is ennobling. A child’s adoration is enabling. A friend’s confidence is encouraging. And the Savior’s gentleness is exalting.
My mom’s notes were just paper. If I had told my peers that pieces of paper empowered me, perhaps some of them would have laughed and teased me. But I kept those papers close. They were just for me from someone who loved me, and that was what mattered.
Like my mom’s notes that I kept in my binder and locker at school, garments are “notes” from God that I get to carry with me every day. They are reminders of my conversations and promises with Him.
Temple garments are just fabric. But also—they aren’t. Like hand-written notes, they are infused with the personalized power of a relationship. That relationship deepens with every prayer, every insight, every promise made and kept. I’m collecting precious notes, tangible evidence of my relationship with the divine. As the scripture says, “God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect” (2 Samuel 22:33).
The better I come to know my mom, the more her words mean to me. I’m eager to reciprocate her love.
The more I learn about the Lord, the more His promises mean to me. I’m eager to keep my promises to Him.
He promises: “Behold, I will lead thee by my hand, and I will take thee, to put upon thee my name, even the Priesthood… and my power shall be over thee” (Abraham 1:18).
A white baptismal jumpsuit dwarfed my little eight-year-old limbs long ago when I waded into the water and first chose to take Christ’s name upon myself. Now, the white fabric against my body physically bespeaks that continued commitment and it has matured into temple covenants. I visualize being fresh out of the water, every day. Re-immersed in a decision, every day. Clean and trusted, every day.
That is power.
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