Happily Married — Trevor Paul Johnson

My older sister Amanda got married to her husband Ben in May of last year, about 9 years after my oldest sister Amy married her husband Brandon. It had been a long time since we'd had a wedding in the family so it all seemed so new and exciting! I was 25 instead of 16 this time around so I had a lot more life experience under my belt. I felt like I could better comprehend the excitement and fear Amanda must have been feeling as she prepared to make that lifelong commitment.

I was at Amanda and Ben's marriage sealing in the Salt Lake Temple. I looked around the room at all the family and friends there to support them in the important ceremony and I thought about the significance of a temple marriage in the Mormon religion. It is considered the greatest commandment of all and something I had been encouraged to aim for my entire life. I had been taught countless times that my eternal salvation and happiness were depending on it. I sat there feeling grateful for the happiness everyone in that room felt for Amanda and Ben because they were getting sealed for "time and all eternity." I also mourned. Because I was gay I didn't anticipate being sealed to a woman in the temple and I knew that I could never be sealed to a man there. It occurred to me as I watched Amanda and Ben kneel at the altar that it was probably the last time I would attend any ceremony in a dedicated Mormon temple.

I didn't mourn because I thought I would go to hell or be lost and miserable forever. I didn't mourn because I felt like I was giving up on a dream that was too hard to achieve. I don't believe now and I didn't then that the only way I can be happy and close to God is by marrying a woman in a Mormon temple. In fact, I am confident that I can be just as happy and close to God if I love another man the way God created me to love and marry him. But when you grow up with high expectations for something as beautiful and promising as a temple marriage, it's hard not to mourn being denied that opportunity.

My little sister Abigail and her now husband Will got married this past weekend, less than a year after Amanda and Ben. I feel like I experienced as much growth and change over those 10 months as I did over the 9 years between Amy and Amanda's weddings. As I waited outside of the temple with my siblings who were still too young to be a part of the sealing, I saw in my mind's eye Abigail and Will kneeling across the altar. I imagined what the room looked like and who was seated inside. I could just picture Abigail's smile as she looked into Will's eyes during the ceremony. I felt happy for them. I didn't mourn that I wasn't inside to witness their marriage. I didn't fear judgment from others who may have wondered why I wasn't there. I was at peace with myself and grateful to be in a more authentic place. I noticed how confident I felt in my worth and how hopeful I was for my future. And I loved Abigail and was there to show my love and support in any way that I could, even if I couldn't be present for her sealing.

Abigail looked beautiful and mature in her ivory, cap-sleeved wedding dress as she came out of the temple with her loving and even-tempered groom. I watched everyone run to hug and congratulate her. When things settled down she came over and gave me a hug. She always gives the best hugs. She held me so tightly, her head barely reaching my sternum, and said intently, "I'm so glad you're here."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," I reassured her, in case she had ever wondered whether or not I would come.

"I know," she said. "But it still makes me so happy that you came."

Throughout the wedding weekend I imagined Abigail's life with her new husband Will. Her life with him will look different than our parents', than Amy and Brandon's, than Amanda and Ben's, just as it will look different than mine. But I believe they can all include love and loyalty, service and sacrifice. I hope that my family will embrace whomever I choose to marry and support us in our union. I pray that they will one day believe that I too can be happily married, even to a man.