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TheDiscipleMD

A number of years ago, my third son was getting married. Since he was marrying a young woman from out-of-state, it fell upon me to order the tuxedos and to make sure that the proper sizes were ordered for the reception. Everyone was good about sending in their measurements. But to be safe, all were encouraged to stop by and try on their tuxes if at all possible. Most did, but a few didn’t because of distance, or because they just didn’t take the time to do so. Between the groom, myself, the father of the bride, the best man and several groomsmen it was a real effort to gather all the sizes and then transport all the tuxedos on the plane to the wedding.

Although my son and his fiancé were getting married in the temple, there was still a need to put on the tuxedos for the photographer, who was taking pictures after the ceremony on the temple grounds. The beautiful spring day of the wedding was made more beautiful by the fact that my Father performed the sealing. Afterwards, everyone retired to change into their gowns and tuxedos. While I was dressing, my second oldest son came up to me and said that his pants didn’t fit. I nonchalantly told him to go to my wife and get a safety-pin. He politely protested by saying that a safety-pin wouldn’t help his situation, that his pants were “way” too big! I was somewhat in a hurry myself. So I brushed him off and essentially told him to handle it. He left but soon returned to complain that there was just no way he could wear the pants of his tux. I said, “Let me see.” He put them on and, to my surprise; they were at least twenty inches too big in the waist. I looked at the back of his pants for a size and sure enough the store had made a mistake. I don’t know whether it was just my nerves, but I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. And although I was laughing, he wasn’t. I called for the help of my wife and she too started to laugh at the enormous size of the pants. My son looked like a clown in them! With no time or place to turn to, my wife was forced to start pinning the pants just to make them stay on his body. To this day, I don’t know how she did it! She put enough pins in that pair of pants that, if my son had worn them on the airplane back home, airport security surely would have been called! And, although my son was a pretty good sport about the whole thing, it ended up being an extremely stressful situation that put a damper on the day. Later on that day, we had to purchase a pair of pants at a local store. I took a picture of him wearing those “clown” pants (above) and we still laugh about it to this day. But, the lesson he learned that day was that the problem could have been avoided had he stopped by the rental store to try on his pants.But he didn’t, because he was too busy! He took for granted that all was right. He ended up being caught with his pants down!

Perhaps you recall the story of another wedding disaster. It’s mentioned in the scriptures. It’s called the parable of the ten virgins. (Matthew 25) Like my son, they too were invited to a wedding. But when the time came for the ceremony, five of the ten virgins hadn’t prepared themselves with the proper amount of oil for their lamps. In essence, they hadn’t tried their “tuxedos” on. They were unprepared and had to run out at the last-minute to find additional oil. In so doing, they ended up being late and were shut out of the wedding.

The Savior told this parable to illustrate that we need to be prepared when He comes, lest we find ourselves “shut out” of His kingdom. All of us have a tendency to procrastinate. We need to remember the words spoken by Alma. He wrote:

“…I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness, wherein there can be no labor performed.” (Alma 34:33)

May we not put off changes that we need to make in our lives! Let’s make ourselves worthy for the marriage by setting our affairs in order…today! Putting off things till tomorrow is always dangerous, because tomorrow is a day that may never come! Let us be ready when the Savior comes again by being spiritually prepared lest he come and find us not properly fit for his wedding!