16x20" mounted giclee print with frame
 
In these last days, the Lord has said, “Be faithful, praying always, having your lamps trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at the coming of the Bridegroom” (D&C 33:17). 
During Bible times, it was custom among the Jews for the bridegroom to come at night to the bride’s house, where her bridesmaids attended her. When his approach was announced, the maidens went out with lamps to light his way for the celebration. These weddings usually began in the evening, with the lamps lit at dusk, so midnight was much later than the bridesmaids would have expected – and the announcement came suddenly.
 
                This parable image of a wedding symbolizes the coming of the Lord (Isaiah 62:5, Matt. 22 1-14) in the latter days. We do not know the time of our Savior’s second coming, but we should prepare for it as though it could come at any time.  “Attendance at sacrament meetings adds oil to our lamps, drop by drop over the years. Fasting, family prayer, home teaching, control of bodily appetites, preaching the gospel, studying the scriptures—each act of dedication and obedience is a drop added to our store. Deeds of kindness, payment of offerings and tithes, chaste thoughts and actions, marriage in the covenant for eternity—these, too, contribute importantly to the oil with which we can at midnight refuel our exhausted lamps.”          President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), Faith Precedes the Miracle (1972)