Above

One summer, at a church camp, one of the speakers talked about a sign he once noticed while leaving the Salt Lake Temple. You have to go underground to actually get inside the temple, and while leaving there is a stairwell with a sign that said "Up Only". He later found a copy of that sign and kept it in his office.

Why did he do this? Because he wanted to be reminded to do everything in his power to keep moving up towards God. Now, I don't really believe that Heaven is up above us somewhere - currently I'm more of the philosophy that Heaven is all around us - but I think the symbolism is important. I am always amazed at how much more you can see around you, just from going up two or three stories in a building. As God knows and sees everything, it is logical to have him symbolically higher than we are.

Another, and I think more important symbolism, is that it take work and effort to go up something. Since becoming ill, I've learned how difficult going up even a few steps can be. It was never meant to be easy - because if it was then the people who made it to the top would be a mixture of people who cared and people who didn't care but decided to follow the crowd. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to put on an event and to have given assignments to people who didn't care - and when it comes to building up the kingdom I don't think that God wants to put himself in that position.

Maybe even more important of a reason for having this symbol of height is that as we climb up, we become stronger. When I was little my family use to go to Disneyland, and my father would force me to go on Splash Mountain with him. As a little girl, I was positive that this ride was going to be the death of me, but my father insisted that I ride it once every time we visited the park. Terrified and convinced that my dad secretly had it in for me, I would smash myself against him and would cry my head off at we ascended that final hill. Remarkably, I survived every time - and now that I'm older I'm not afraid of it.

The reason why my father made me ride that horrible attraction was because he wanted me to grow as a person, and he knew that I would never grow if I stayed in my comfort zone. God, like my father, wants to help us to become the best we can be, and that includes giving us experiences that make us stronger. Strangely enough, every time I had to go on that ride I would have a small moment of peace right when we reached the top and I could see the incredible view. For the smallest moment, my fear would leave me at the brilliance of what I could see. In a spiritual sense, we'll never become willing to make the climb and receive the rewards that our Heavenly Father has in store for us until we somehow get over our own personal fear of heights.