What the Temple Taught Me That Church Couldn’t

By Claire Shumway

There are things you can’t fully understand about the temple until you’ve been inside one. And there are things you don’t fully appreciate until you’ve been back a few times. I’m still somewhere in the middle of that journey — but I want to share what I’ve noticed so far.

The First Time Is a Lot

I’ll be honest: the first time I went through the temple, I walked out with more questions than answers. Everything was new — the clothing, the ceremony, the language, the covenants. It’s a lot to take in. I remember feeling a mixture of something sacred and something genuinely overwhelming.

Nobody told me that was a completely normal reaction, and I wish they had. Because here’s the thing — the temple isn’t designed to be fully understood in a single visit. It’s designed to be returned to. The meaning unfolds over time.

What Started to Shift

Over subsequent visits, things started to settle. The unfamiliar became familiar. And once I wasn’t spending so much mental energy on what was happening, I could start paying attention to what it meant.

The endowment is, among other things, a story. It traces the human experience — where we came from, why we’re here, where we’re going — in a way that’s symbolic and layered. Every time I go back, I notice something I hadn’t caught before. A phrase. A gesture. A moment that lands differently based on what I’m going through in my life at the time.

That layering is intentional. The temple rewards return visits.

The Feeling Inside

There’s an atmosphere in the temple that I genuinely haven’t found anywhere else. It’s quiet in a way that feels intentional, not empty. There’s a sense of separation from the noise of everything outside those walls — and in that quiet, it’s a lot easier to hear yourself think. To hear more than that, even.

Some of my clearest moments of spiritual clarity have come in the temple. Not always dramatic impressions — often just a settling. A sense of “okay. It’s going to be okay.”

What It’s Taught Me About Covenants

I think the biggest thing the temple has given me is a deeper understanding of what covenants actually are. In regular Sunday settings, we talk about covenants, but it can feel abstract. In the temple, covenants are the whole point. You’re making them, renewing them, witnessing them for others.

That changes how I think about baptism, sacrament, all of it. These aren’t just rituals — they’re promises. Bilateral commitments. And the temple makes that feel real in a way that’s hard to describe but hard to forget once you’ve felt it.

Go Back

If you’ve been endowed and it’s been a while, I’d just gently say: go back. Bring a question you’re sitting with. Go with an open mind about what you might notice this time that you didn’t the last time.

The temple has more to offer than any single visit can give you. That’s sort of the whole point.

What’s something the temple has taught you over time? I’d love to hear your experience in the comments.