In the past few weeks, I’ve often referred to the book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman. But there’s another book that has been a great help to me in developing a deeper understanding of marriage and its purpose. It’s called Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage: Eternal Doctrines that Change Relationships, and it’s written by H. Wallace Goddard.

The second book is directed toward members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and draws heavily from the Book of Mormon, but its principles will bless anyone who follows them. Goddard’s central premise is that marriage is the workshop God uses to make us the people He wants us to be.

Before we’re married, marriage seems like a fairy tale. We’re swept up in the bliss of being with the person we love. But gradually, the bliss dissipates, and we might be surprised to discover that marriage is, well, hard. Our Prince Charming isn’t so charming. Sometimes, he’s downright annoying. We might think we made a mistake, that we chose the wrong person, or that we’re doing this whole marriage thing wrong.

We aren’t. Because the truth is that marriage is supposed to be hard. Think of it like an exercise program. You get all sweaty. Your muscles are sore. If you push hard enough, your arms and legs start to shake with exhaustion. But anyone who’s gone through the process before will tell you that all the pain and fatigue are necessary to reach the goal.

Marriage is the same. There are heavy things to lift, like our spouse’s imperfections and our own weaknesses. It feels like we’re running a course that’s uphill both ways. We’ll be sore in spiritual and emotional muscles we didn’t know we had. But think of what we achieve if we don’t give up—greater patience, improved ability to love and serve, increased charity.

If you diligently follow your exercise program, you’ll eventually look in the mirror and see a healthier, stronger, shapelier body. What will you see in the mirror if you stick with the spiritual exercise program called marriage? The Book of Mormon says of those who receive the gift of charity, “[W]hen he [Jesus Christ] shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (Moroni 7:48).

There is no better opportunity for developing charity than marriage. Each day that we become better husbands and wives, we become a little more like Jesus Christ. My faith teaches me that this is the purpose of my whole life, and I see that marriage helps me achieve it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equality is one of the founding principles of the American republic. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” (Thomas Jefferson). * We’ve struggled, with varying levels of success, to turn that ideal into reality, but no matter how far we still have to go, we believe in the promise of equality. What does “equality” look like in a marriage? Different people will answer differently, but one thing that seems certain is that if one spouse has all the power, equality isn’t truly possible. Couples may struggle to find the balance because power and responsibility go hand in hand. It’s easy to say, “I want equal power in this relationship.” But claiming power also means accepting the responsibility that goes with it. Take, for example, cooking. I do almost all the cooking and meal planning in our family. I’m good at it, and I usually enjoy it. My husband and kids are happy to let me take on this responsibility, even though they give up a lot of the ...
Read more
In Defense of Chastity In common usage, chastity is often a synonym for virginity. However, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we use the word in a broader sense. We talk about the law of chastity when we’re referring to the guideline God has given us for sexual relationships, specifically, no sexual relations before marriage and after marriage, sexual relations only with our spouse. This concept isn’t unique to our church, however. Traditional Jewish and Muslim people, as well as Christians of most denominations, adhere (or try to adhere) to the same standard. Of course, people of other faiths or people who aren’t religious at all may wonder why such a standard is necessary. Aren’t we just being ridiculously uptight? By being so restrictive, aren’t we cutting ourselves off from a lot of pleasure and maybe even causing ourselves problems later on? In my experience, the answer is no. In this post, I’m going to rely heavily on the words of Jeffrey R. Hollan...
Read more
What do you think of when you hear the word “pride”? A person standing tall and feeling good about herself? Or the sneer of someone looking down on those he thinks are below him? We may use the word pride in both ways, depending on the context, but Ezra Taft Benson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1985 to 1994, pointed out that “In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride  — it is always considered a sin. Therefore, no matter how the world uses the term, we must understand how God uses the term so we can understand the language of holy writ and profit thereby” (“ Beware of Pride ,” Ensign, May 1989). The kind of pride condemned by the scriptures is destructive everywhere but especially in marriage. Pride is competitive when we need to cooperate. Pride demands that we keep up appearances when we need to let someone else see how much we hurt so we can ask for help. Pride sees apologies as a sign of weakness. In marriage, we need to...
Read more