Getting into the Temple

I was able to have an interesting experience last week. It was the last week of the month and our stake is encouraging everyone that has a temple recommend to attend monthly this year, so I wanted to get there. It was Jan 30th to be exact. I was able to rearrange carpooling and Deanne said she could watch Dylan for me. I was pretty excited because I haven't been for a few months. I walked in to the peaceful temple looking forward to still and quiet. I handed my recommend to the smiling attendant, he scanned it and then there was an unfamiliar beep after the scan. "I'm sorry, Sister Rawlings, it looks like your recommend has expired." I was shocked. We just got the new scan recommends so it wasn't in my mind that it would be expired. I walked back outside into the freezing cold. I was seriously upset. I've never been told that I couldn't go into the temple. I've had my recommend expire before and not renewed it right away, I've forgotten my recommend in another bag and figured it out before I walked in, but not this. I've never walked in thinking I'm going to attend and then not been able. I started to cry and called Kenneth to tell him that our recommends were expired. He mentioned that he had known that in November, but hadn't thought of it again. I remembered that a few weeks before this, the thought had come into my mind that I should check to see if my recommend needed renewing. I pushed it aside thinking someone would have said something if we were that close to it expiring. In years past the bishopric has done the renewal interviews during tithing settlement. Kenneth told me that he had asked then, but they said that they weren't doing that this year. As I was crying in my car I could think of plenty of reasons why this couldn't possibly be my fault. In the end however, I realized it is always my responsibility to make sure that I am fully prepared to enter the temple. I'm actually very grateful for this experience. It was tough on the day, but now I have a small inkling of what it feels like to be told that you can't attend the temple. I am going to do everything in my power to never have that said to me again. I am so grateful for the temple. I am so grateful for the peace that is there. I need it in my life more than I can even say.