I have more siblings!

Some time last year, my sister gave me the book, Heaven is For Real.  I was excited to hear that the movie was coming out on big screen.  I went to see it this past week for mutual with the young women.


I love how Colton, the little boy in the story, visits heaven and meets Jesus, along with two other deceased people.  He meets his dad's dad, and a young girl with red hair.

For as long as I have known, I have an older brother and an older sister.  It has always been the three of us. We've not always had the greatest sibling relationship (probably in most part due to the culture we grew up in), but I love my siblings and would never trade them for the world.  And it's important to me to be with them in the eternities, for I truly believe that families are eternal.

It was interesting that one of the people Colton meets in heaven is a young girl, a bit older than him, with no name.  The girl, however, knows him and has red hair like their mother.  She just embraces him.  He finds out that the girl is his sister!  He tells his mom as they're sitting together one day, and it finally helps her to truly believe Colton, as she questioned how true Colton's stories about heaven were.  She had never told him about miscarrying a baby.  Colton tells his mom that he doesn't know her name because they never gave her one.

Ezra and I had a discussion after I returned from the movie, and he helped me to understand that all it takes is conception (gaining of a body) to be eligible to return to heaven.  I knew this before, but I was a bit confused to all the technicalities of what I had learned in the past.  It all made sense now. 

And then as we were having family dinner with Ezra's family last night, it hit me... I HAVE MORE SIBLINGS! 

Like I said, for my whole life, all I've thought about siblings were my brother, Tony, and my sister, Meredith.  My mom had a miscarriage (or two) before I was born.  To know that I have more siblings on the other side of the veil has me thinking... do I have more brothers, or sisters, or both?  What do they look like?  Will they be excited and happy to meet me when that time comes for me?  Do they watch over me from heaven?  Are my grandparents there taking care of them?

All of this makes me appreciate the importance of sealing and an eternal marriage.  Ezra and I are not only sealed to our future children, but we're sealed to our family here and now, and also to family from the past. Heavenly Father created the Plan of Salvation for us for this purpose.  And it brings me hope!  And though I may or may not ever understand the pain a mother goes through when enduring a miscarriage, it should bring hope and healing that their children are safe in God's hands, and that they will be able to see them again.

To my siblings, who I do not yet know... I love you, and I can't wait to meet you one day!