In-law issues

I have heard that the most difficult of family relationships are between a mother and her daughter in law. This has been true in my life. My mother in law is a wonderful and faithful woman but is very strong in her options and will not deviate or compromise. I am fairly easy going but this has caused some contention between us. However, I see it more in the problems that have come up with the other daughters in law who are more opinionated. I have learned that it is very important to cleave unto your spouse and be united in your goals before turning towards your extended family members for advice or companionship. In the article we read about how difficult it can be to decide where you will spend your holidays. This was a problem for the first couple of years of my marriage. Both families would always end up being frustrated with us for not spending enough time with them. This is when we realized we just needed to do what was best for us and stop trying to please everyone else, because it was impossible and unnecessary.

Adulting

It was interesting to read this week about the changes that need to occur between parents and their adult children. I have a 20 year old son and an 18 year old daughter. My son doesn’t live at home but was just home visiting for a couple of weeks. Our relationship with him is very “adult”. He respects us and is much more helpful around the house than he was when he lived with us. Our eighteen year old is a different story. She has graduated from high school but is still living with us for another month before she leaves for college. This is a weird transition. We have slowly given her more freedom which is so difficult for me. She would have wanted us to give her 100% freedom the day she turned eighteen but that wasn’t going to happen. It needs to be gradual and the goal of parenting is to teach our children to be independent and responsible. This cannot be done if we make every decision for them, even though I would like to sometimes. Then I remember that it was Satan’s plan to take away agency. Our children need to learn to overcome challenges while they are living with us so we can help them navigate life as they grow.

Eternal Happiness

Sean E. Brotherson wrote an article and shared his mother’s thoughts on intimacy within her marriage. She said, “Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was comforting, sometimes it was romantic, sometimes it was spiritual, and sometimes it was a willingness to love.” I can relate to these thoughts tremendously. Sexual intimacy within a marriage is meant to strengthen many different facets of our relationship. All of the aspects of marriage that we have studied so far this year leads up to this very critical component of our covenant. We are meant to have fun together, be romantic, spiritual, and of course love each other. At the beginning of the semester we learned, and continue to learn, that one of the most vital parts of a relationship is the friendship. This is what we build on and the sexual relationship between husband and wife is a blessing and strength to them. Elder Dallin H. Oaks said, “Through the lens of spirituality we see all the commandments of God as invitations to blessings. Obedience and sacrifice, loyalty and love, fidelity and family, all appear in eternal perspective.” This was another one of my favorite quotes from this week. I am so thankful for the commandments we have been given and how these protect us from damaging ourselves and those around us. Through obedience we can find eternal happiness.

Help from heaven

President Benson said, “Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find it.” I have learned the most from reading Goddard’s book and have enjoyed every page. The main thing I will remember, and implement more fully into my life, is that we are not meant to go through marriage as individuals. We are meant to work together with the Lord as our guide. He will help us to be humble, forgiving, and patient as we learn how to be better Christians. How do we work with the Lord? This is something we must work on daily through practice. I have found that starting the day off with prayer and asking for Heavenly Father’s help to guide me makes a big difference. This sets our minds and hearts towards what He would want us to do. Listening to the Spirit is vital also. If we can be worthy of the Spirit and listen to the promptings we can be in tune to what our spouse might need. The two most important things for me to be able to work with the Lord is to be worthy and to be willing to submit to what He might ask of me.

Consecrating our marriage

I really enjoyed relearning the story of King Lamoni and seeing how we can apply that to our marriage relationship. When brought to repentance, King Lamoni covenants to give away all of his sins to know God. He sees that there needs to be a full change of his heart, and in his life, in order to be in a good place. At this point King Lamoni is willing to turn his life over to his Heavenly Father by making every sacrifice necessary. In marriage are often brought to a point where we need to make a decision to repent and turn away from the pride and resentment we might have for our spouse or hold onto it. When we are willing to let go of our unrighteous judgements our marriage will flourish. Too often I get annoyed by my husband and his habits that can get under my skin. There have been times when I have to walk away before I get too angry. At this point of our marriage I watch him do the things that annoy me and think to myself how blessed I am to have him in my life. I laugh a little to myself about how silly those things are and how I use to be overtaken by my annoyances. I am so thankful for modern day prophets that teach us to be kind and especially forgiving.

His will

Goddard gives us his insights on pride by sharing, “The natural man is inclined to love himself and fix others. God has asked us to do the opposite. We are to fix ourselves by repenting, and to love others.” This council, along with many other things this week, reminded me of my role as a wife. There are so many times when I find fault in my husband and wish he would do things differently. These are really dumb things that don’t matter at all but for some reason they drive me crazy sometimes. It is obvious to me that I am the problem here. I need to learn more patience for sure. This lesson talked about Alma the younger and how he had a total change of heart. As he was in the process of repenting he remembered that his father had taught him that he can only find redemption through Jesus Christ. He called upon the Savior and aligned his will with the Lord’s. Alma is such a great example of humility and total trust. This is a powerful example to me of how I should be in my life and marriage. If I can align myself with God’s will and work hand in hand with him we will be able to overcome whatever challenges come into my life.

Doubt not, fear not

There have been so many different thoughts running through my mind this week that it is difficult to put them into words. My husband and I have gone through many trials as we try to figure out how to raise our children and many times we feel like we are failing in the process. Sometimes we disagree on how to teach the children but most of the time we are on the same page. It is a beautiful thing when we connect emotionally and are there to support one another. There are times when I feel like he and I are on an island and there is no one else that we can turn to for help in our struggles. However, there is our loving Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ, who know our deepest desires and pain. In Doctrine and Covenants 6:36 we read, “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” I doubt a lot and I live in almost constant fear that I am not doing all I can to help my kids along the covenant path. The feeling of panic overcomes me sometimes, but I know this is not helpful. The youth theme for the year is Peace in Christ. I wholeheartedly agree with that. When we lay our burdens at his feet and look to him at all times we can feel the peace that only the Savior can bring. He washes the doubt and fear from my mind over and over again.

Marriage is Ordained

I have done a lot of thinking this week about the purpose of marriage. My teenage daughter was very frustrated last night asking us why we need to get married and can’t she do as much good on her own. I explained to her what I had learned this week. We learn that marriage is ordained of God. To ordain something is to authorize by order by virtue of superior authority. This helps us to see that the ordaining of marriage is more of a commandment than good advice and that the superior authority in this case is God. She was still not content with this answer and figured she could be just as good of a person with or without marriage. I explained to her that there are many things that we simply cannot learn without the marriage covenant. Goddard explains the two purposes of marriage. 1. A refuge from the storms of life. 2. A storm where we test our balance and determination. What an interesting observation. Marriage is the storm and the refuge and I think that definition about sums it up! I really enjoy talking with my family about these great truths that I have been studying. I just pray that they will open their hearts and feel the truthfulness and have a desire to enter the temple to make covenants and receive their endowment that is waiting for them.

Covenant vs Contract Marriage

Elder Bruce C. Hafen gave a great talk about covenant marriage at the October 1996 general conference. This was one year after my husband and I were sealed in the Seattle Temple and the year after The First Presidency came out with The Family: A Proclamation to the World. These two inspired documents have helped me immensely and were perfectly timed to help me in my marriage. In Elder Haven’s talk he shared some very important messages about the difference between contract and covenant marriages. He said that in a contract marriage each partner gives 50% but in a covenant marriage each couple needs to give 100%. When my husband and I made our covenants with Heavenly Father in 1995 we were very clueless as to how difficult marriage actually is and what it would take to keep our temple covenants. Like most brides, I was looking forward to the wonderful wedding day, the honeymoon, and moving in together in Provo, Utah. I don’t think we could have been prepared for what would come. Elder Haven shares that in marriage there are three kinds of wolves that come to test the relationship. The first is natural adversity, like health issues. The second is our own imperfections. Maybe we are too critical or negative. The third kind of wolf is excessive individualism, or selfishness. These three have definitely been a part of my marriage and have been difficult to handle. A mother once said as she was lamenting about her unruly son, “The Lord gave us that child to make Christians out of us”. This is the same way I feel about covenant marriage. We are literally children of God and to learn to love His children is how we become more like Him. I have been married for almost 23 years and it never really gets easier until we turn to the Lord and have His help through our trials.

Marriage for all

I really appreciated reading Obergefell v Hodges (2015). Both sides of the discussion had very valid points and I know that this was a turning point in American history. They were both in agreement that marriage is the basic foundation of our nation and that it is important to our civilization. One of my favorite quotes from this document is, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become greater than they once were.” When it comes to the speech given by Alexander Dushanbe on July 7th, 2015 he shared some great advice on how we as believers in traditional marriage can help keep peace between those of differing views. He said that we need to be able to explain our beliefs with reason, kindness, and love. He shared that of course there are people at both extremes that are unwilling to listen, but we can each do our part to be civil and understanding yet firm in where we stand. By far my favorite reading for the week came from Russell M. Nelsons speech at BYU in 2014. He warned the audience that there will be many struggles to come and that we will be faced with times that we will have to defend our faith and to do that in a loving way. He shared several scriptures that show that the faithful will be persecuted but Christ will strengthen the persecuted. These scriptures (2 Timothy 3:12, 3 Nephi 12:10, Romans 1:16) give me great hope and make be feel like I can stand up for the truth and I will have God on my side. Howard W. Hunter said, “If our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ, and his restored gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong...if our lives are not centered on the Savior and his teachings, no other success can ever be permanently right.” This quote is my new family creed! I love it.

Life is what you make it.

I was raised in a large family with two parents who loved each other deeply. There was and is a lot of love within our family and this helped me significantly feel secure as I grew up. My family struggled through many different stresses but the main focus of our family was always the gospel of Jesus Christ. This strong faith left me with a legacy of putting my love of God and family first. This example of sacrifice and commitment helped me tremendously as I began my own family 22 years ago. My husband and I both came from intact families and there is virtually no divorce in our direct family line. This legacy of covenant marriage is what continues to focus our efforts on building a strong family and staying devoted to one another. Elder Oaks said, “A good marriage does not require a perfect man or a perfect woman. It only requires a man and a woman committed to strive together toward perfection.” This is a very long process. There are many in our society that want that complete happiness now and are constantly working towards that or looking for it. Many run into serious problems as they feel they cannot be content unless they are always happy. This causes many divorces as spouses easily find fault with their partner and see the potential happiness they could be achieving with others. My husband and I have tried to follow the example of our imperfect but devoted parents. We have a great belief in the institution of marriage and that it is divine. Because we hold this belief, we have put a lot of effort into building up our foundation on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Our Savior taught us to sacrifice for one another and love one another. In a marriage these are the two most important things. Although we have had our fair share of heartache, we are able to stay committed to one another because of our eternal perspective of marriage. We know that we are on the road to perfection and we do not expect to ever reach that in this life. Our goal is to keep loving, sacrificing, and working towards this perfection.