"Renaissance of Marriage: To Become as One"

I love this address that President Henry B. Eyring shared at "The Complementarity of Man and Woman: An International Interreligious Colloquium in Vatican City, Rome" this last November, 2014:

"Renaissance of Marriage: To Become as One"

I love that President Eyring points out that one of the main similarities in happy marriages and families is unselfishness. Then he goes on to explain how we can obtain this quality of unselfishness. We can grow this attribute within ourselves by connecting ourselves with a faith that teaches love and compassion, and we will naturally become more unselfish.

As we recognize this principle, we will be more likely to avoid the pitfall of selfishness and seek to be more unselfish. 

I also love the idea that as we become unselfish, differences start to create a better whole, with unique attributes that each brings to the marriage. This happens as a husband and wife become one, and do not let differences separate, but enhance. 

I invite you to read President Eyring's address, or at least watch the 2 to 3 minute video of the highlights of the talk, because it is a powerful testimony of the family. It has strengthened my own resolve and excitement for my future family.

Today!

"We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day."

 -Elder Richard G. Scott

I think that I have just recently begun to grasp this concept. Most people have goals for their life, and they see a picture of what they want. I want to be happy. I want to be a good person. In connection with my future family, I want to be a great wife and mother. And I want to be a part of my own eternal "happily ever after," with my husband, children, and other dear family by my side. I know that Heavenly Father plants within each of us these desires so that we can ultimately realize them. 

In a recent devotional at Brigham Young University Idaho, where I am studying, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke about happiness. In his address entitled, "Living After the Manner of Happiness," one of the most memorable lines in that devotional for me is "Live the way happy people live. Walk the path that happy people walk."

In 2 Nephi 5: 27 it says, "And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness."

If we wish to be happy, we must do the things that happy people do. 

If I want to be a good person, I must do the things that good people do. 

This beautiful principle applies to every quality or aspect of life someone is striving for. If I want to be patient, I must be act patiently today. If I want to be a great pianist, I must act like a great pianist today. If I want to be a great accountant, I must act like a great accountant would act today. If I want to be selfless, I must serve and act selflessly today. 

Many times we think "as soon as I reach this point, I will be great at this." One example of this that I was reminded of by my Relief Society President on Sunday is that sometimes I think, as soon as I am married and have kids, I will be the best wife and mother there is. However, I will not magically become an awesome mom as soon as I have children. Qualities are not meant to grow overnight. Good things take time to grow and blossom, just as a giant tree begins as a small seedling and grows over many years into a towering height. 

As my goal is to become a strong, faithful, and loving wife and mother, I realize that I must be a strong, faithful, and loving friend, daughter, and sister now. This happens through the small grains of strength, faith, and love that I should be dropping onto my accumulating pile each day. As we succeed in each little endeavor, we will gain the circulating and self-propagating encouragement and motivation required to accomplish another small success. Eventually, through prayer and consistency, these successes will turn into a habitual, even an unconscious effort to be a better person. Before we realize it, we will be the strong, faithful, loving, patient, piano-playing :), professional people we want to become. This works with any quality that we desire. 

One thing I want to do more of is think about and write down where I am headed. What are my ultimate goals, and how does my current life fit with these goals? Are the things that I am doing right now, at this very moment, leading me towards or away from the qualities that I want to develop and the person I want to become? What course corrections do I need to make? 

In my family foundations class, I have learned of many wonderful things that I can do in my future family that will make it strong and happy. Some of these include having family prayer, scripture study, and home evening. My favorite paragraph in the Family Proclamation has a list of principles that family life should be built upon. This is a great place to pick some qualities I need to begin developing today if I am to have a successful family: 

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love compassion, work and wholesome recreational activities."

We can start today, whatever stage we are in, to build and strengthen our families through these principles. The key is to start. Today. :) I am excited as I begin to strengthen my future family today. Preparation today is a protection for tomorrow. As I build good habits and qualities, my family will be that much stronger in the future. 

Why Family?

"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan" (The Family: A Proclamation to the World).

To understand the importance of family in God's plan, we must understand God's plan.
God is our Heavenly Father. He is the Father of our spirits. He loves all of His children and wants all of His children to be happy. In order to do this, He established the beautiful Plan of Happiness. The Plan of Happiness includes all of us coming to Earth, gaining physical bodies, stretching and becoming, and returning in eternal family units.

Deep happiness comes through the family. This probably isn't obvious to most people. I know it wasn't for me. It can be difficult to see how a family generates joy. We see bickering couples, selfish parents, and fighting children everywhere. How is it that we would want a family after seeing examples such as these? Wouldn't it be better to just live life alone, free from the "burden" of a spouse and children? This is a very real question in today's world. I have struggled with this very question myself. How can I accept that families create joy and yet I see that many times family life doesn't seem happy?

One of the answers to this question can be found through looking at the ideal family. If all family members were unselfish, giving, loving, helpful, nonjudgmental, positive, kind, uplifting, hardworking, you name the perfect quality, it is very easy to see that family life would be great. Obviously, each person is imperfect and perfection in family life will never be fully achieved in this life. However, we can get close. We have been given the picture of the ideal family life and the principles needed to get there.

For any type of successful company, budgets and standards are established to track the progress of the company. I am pursuing a degree in accounting, so right now I am enveloped in the study of applying these standards (I had to throw something in here for the accountants, representing the life of the party:)). Each standard and/or budgeted amount is a goal that is high but also attainable. Our goal for family life is happiness in this life and eternal family life in the life to come. This is our goal, and it is high and attainable. Our mini goals are to be kind, loving, industrious, etc. We may sometimes fall short of these mini goals, but as we work diligently to improve ourselves and do better each day, we will obtain our ultimate goal and find joy in the journey.

But, why should we even try to establish a happy family instead of taking the seemingly easier route of living alone and trying to find happiness there? It seems like a ton of work to establish this happy, ideal family. Is it worth it? Being single, I often wonder: how could I ever deal with another person and their problems, worries, hopes, dreams, and feelings when I can hardly take care of and understand my own?? I have come to realize that it is through relationships with others that we strengthen ourselves and others. "No man is an island," a phrase coined by John Donne, has been used in many songs, movies, and books. In one context, this phrase can be applied here. I was not placed on Earth to be an "island." You were not placed on Earth to be an "island." We all affect each other and are meant to lift each other up. It is through the family that we help each other and are helped. As a family strives towards a goal, such as choosing the right and making it back to Heavenly Father, they have an inherent strength unparalleled by just one person striving towards this same end. It is easier to reach the end of the race when you are surrounded by a team struggling with you and cheering you on. 

One of the concepts that author and speaker Stephen Covey advocates is synergy. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We find something greater in family life than just the ease of not having as many problems in single life. It is in family relationships that we find the deepest and richest experiences. Therein are the greatest sorrows and the most profound joys found. I want to affirm that a family is worth it.

To all the single adults out there, I also wanted to include that just because I am saying that the family is important doesn't mean I'm saying you are a bad person. I'm single right now, but I hope for an eternal marriage someday. Speaking of those who do not have the opportunity to marry right now, Elder Richard G. Scott says, "All things are possible to the Lord, and He keeps the promises He inspires His prophets to declare. Eternity is a long time. Have faith in those promises and live to be worthy of them so that in His time the Lord can make them come true in your life. With certainty, you will receive every promised blessing for which you are worthy" ("The Eternal Blessings of Marriage"). (By the way this talk by Elder Scott is one of the most sincere and sweet talks I have ever read. Read it!)
I know that family life brings true happiness. I have seen it in the family I grew up in, and I have faith that happiness will come of my future family.

Truth

One of my very favorite subjects is truth. It can actually be a very touchy subject, believe it or not.:)

First off, I would like to say that each of us has a partial view, a flawed perspective of the world around us. No matter how many enlightening experiences we have had, no matter the scope of our learning, no matter the breadth of our intelligence and wisdom, we are imperfect beings. 

The only one to have a perfect view of everything is God, our Heavenly Father. He sees all that we do not see. His perspective is truly eternal. 

Does this mean that we should throw up our hands in dismay and forget about trying to find truth and the true perspective? Absolutely not. We should always be striving to see the way that God sees. 

In any sort of game, there are rules. The players must follow the rules to be able to enjoy the game and have it end in some sort of meaningful result. They must understand the rules in order to understand what is going on during the game. To win a game, you must understand the rules. 

Truth can be compared loosely to this example of a rules in a game. If we do not know the rules, or truth, we cannot be successful during the game, or life. 

If you tried to play the game of checkers by the rules of chess, would you win? Would you even be able to compete? There would be no point to your game if you were playing by the wrong rules. 

So, if truth is so important, what is it? Where do we find it? How do we avoid the ocean of opinion and falsehood to get to it?

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave a beautiful CES devotional in January of 2013 about this very topic. The full article is here: https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/print/ces-devotionals/2013/01/what-is-truth?lang=eng

One part of his talk really emphasizes this point: 

Yes, our world is full of confusion. But eventually all of our questions will be answered. All of our doubts will be replaced by certainty. And that is because there is one source of truth that is complete, correct, and incorruptible. That source is our infinitely wise and all-knowing Heavenly Father. He knows truth as it was, as it is, and as it yet will be. "He comprehendeth all things, … and he is above all things, … and all things are by him, and of him."Our loving Heavenly Father offers His truth to us, His mortal children.Now, what is this truth?It is His gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life.”If we will only have enough courage and faith to walk in His path, it will lead us to peace of heart and mind, to lasting meaning in life, to happiness in this world, and to joy in the world to come. The Savior is “not far from every one of us.”¹⁷ We have His promise that if we seek Him diligently, we will find Him.... Just think about it. You actually have a powerful companion and trustworthy guide in this ongoing search for truth. Who is it? It is the Holy Ghost. Our Heavenly Father knew how difficult it would be for us to sift through all the competing noise and discover truth during our mortality. He knew we would see only a portion of the truth, and He knew that Satan would try to deceive us. So He gave us the heavenly gift of the Holy Ghost to illuminate our minds, teach us, and testify to us of the truth.... Yes, your loving Father in Heaven would never leave you alone in this mortality to wander in the dark. You need not be deceived. You can overcome the darkness of this world and discover divine truth.

The next step after understanding truth is to seek the lifestyle that follows truth.
Because the gospel of Jesus Christ is truth, we should seek to align our lives with truth. This is where the doctrine of the family comes in. It is on this basis that families should be built. The Family: A Proclamation to the World states:

Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

Here is some truth that we can apply to our "game" of life. It will increase our odds of coming out victorious and happy in family life.  

The Family: A Proclamation to the World

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THE FAMILY

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A PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD

The First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

WE, THE FIRST PRESIDENCY and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

IN THE PREMORTAL REALM, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.

WE DECLARE the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s eternal plan.

HUSBAND AND WIFE have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.

THE FAMILY is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.

WE WARN that individuals who violate covenants of chastity, who abuse spouse or offspring, or who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

WE CALL UPON responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.

This proclamation was read by President Gordon B. Hinckley as part of his message at the General Relief Society Meeting held September 23, 1995, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Core

Before I get too far in, I thought it would be appropriate to explain why I believe what I do about the family, and what my principle sources of belief are.

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This is the major factor of my decisions of what is truth and what is falsehood, because I have learned through the Church how to test truth. I believe that the way to discern truth comes through one overarching source - The Holy Ghost. To those who aren't familiar with the LDS religion, this may seem a foreign concept. The Holy Ghost is our guide in this life, leading us to what is right and steering us away from what is wrong. The Holy Ghost can be likened to conscience, but He is much more than our conscience. On the lds.org website, the description of the Holy Ghost is as follows:

"The Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead. He is a personage of spirit, without a body of flesh and bones. He is often referred to as the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, or the Comforter."

Through the Holy Ghost, I have found the scriptures (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price) to be the word of God. As such, I use these books as reliable sources for answers.


Another aspect that guides my belief is my testimony of revelation through modern-day prophets. Without going into too much detail, I believe that there are men on Earth today that have the authority to receive revelation (through the Holy Ghost) for the entire church and world. These are prophets and apostles. Just as there were prophets and apostles in Bible times, there are prophets and apostles today.

This being said, these prophets and apostles speak to the world to voice of warnings and guidance. One of the major revelations that I will be referring to frequently in this blog is called The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The link to the full printable page:
https://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation   

One more source that I use is my own observation of whether or not something leads me closer to, or farther from God. I can look at the "fruits" of a viewpoint, an action, a way of life to decide whether it leads to happiness or not. I take comfort in this source as well, because it appeals to logic and reason, and is simple to understand.

  3 Nephi 14: 17-18, 20
 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
 20 Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them.

These are some of my principle sources. I have discovered for myself through the Spirit that these sources can be trusted. However, do not take my word for it; discover for yourself if the words from the scriptures and modern-day prophets are true. Read them yourself and pray for an answer. This promise given in Moroni 10: 4-5 is for those who seek the truth:

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

As I use these sources, do not assume that only members of my church can relate, or that this blog is only meant for those of my faith. The principles that are taught in these sources are meant for the entire world. Truth is truth. It can be applied by everyone.

I hope this gives an accurate picture of my background, basis for my reasoning, and why I feel strongly about the things that I believe.

Purpose of this Blog

My purpose in creating this blog is to share my views on the family as the central unit of society and ultimate way to happiness. I will share some of my views on how one can protect the family they have now and prepare for the family they will one day have if not married yet.
The motivating factor in starting up this blog - why I am even writing, is my Family Foundations class I am taking at Brigham Young University-Idaho. I have the opportunity to work on a project of my design and choosing throughout the semester that has to do with strengthening the family. I decided to write this blog as a sort of public support of the family, and to supplement this aspect I am working on privately strengthening my future family. I am learning to play a few more of the beautiful hymns for use in my future home. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses a collection of hymns that are peace-inspiring and faith-increasing. I am excited to learn a few more to play whenever I need peace or my home needs the atmosphere that sacred music brings.
As people in the world try to make sense of family in the context of political, social, and religious settings, I want to add my voice as a testimony of the sanctity of family. I am usually not very vocal in public about my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so this blog will be a journey for me. By writing my thoughts here, I do not wish to argue or cause contention. I respect that many people have very different views than I do, but I also wish to voice my own. Thanks for reading this far, I appreciate it; if this didn't bore you too much, feel free to come back and read my occasional posts as I explore the beautiful topic of the family. :)