Being worthy of the
Holy Spirit every day is the basis for a joyful eternal marriage. The Spirit is
a sensitive being who can easily be drawn away from a negative thought, action,
or environment. Our lives are surrounded by the world’s standards which often
cause for divorce. The Spirit’s influence in this life is so vital. We can heed
to the promptings of the Spirit to produce more positive thoughts, kind
actions, and a spiritual home. Living righteously involves a constant filtering
of the world’s standards to live by God’s standards. Naturally by living God’s
standards by choice we can have the Spirit’s companionship. We will feel the
influence of the Spirit when we feel peace, joy, and an encouragement to keep
living the gospel. Within marriage when we have this extra companionship the
couple can be led together to have righteous goals, live God’s will, experience
true happiness, and become more like Christ.
Our Savior was the perfect example of how to pattern our
lives. The more we work on becoming like Christ to acquire His attributes of patience,
compassion, faith, selflessness, charity, humility, long-suffering, purity, and
hope, the happier our marriages will be. Though we don’t have biblical stories
of His marriage so that we can pattern our marriage after His own, I know that
these attributes will make us the perfect person for our partner and for Christ.
As long as our relationship with God comes first then our covenants made in the
temple will mean so much that we would have every desire to strive for that
everlasting covenant marriage daily. This type of marriage is ordained by God’s
standards which is not cheap. Through a daily dedication to our covenants and constant
charity I believe we can make progress to a divine partnership. Things will always
eventually get better through the gospel of Jesus Christ, even marriage.
I’ve always been fascinated by this phenomenon of love.
Everyone wants love, everyone needs love, but not everyone seems to have it.
With the divorce and infidelity statistics up I would often wonder if I’d be a
lucky one to find this “one love of my life”.
This semester I have learned so
much about the concept of true love. First, love isn’t about the luck of the
draw or fate for finding that soul mate. I get to choose if I want to be with a
particular special man who I find desirable to the standards I’ve set for my
future. Personally, I want to marry my best friend. With this concept comes
peace and a bit of nerves knowing that I get to make such a great commitment
based from my choice. I know that I will not only be led, but confirmed of my
decision by the Spirit if I keep living worthily. My mother has said before, “Choose
your love and love your choice.” Second, love isn’t about running into that
person and immediately always being happy with them forever. “If you want
something to last forever, you treat it differently.” Those who get divorces
had the choice to “fall out of love” with their spouse. True love is hard work.
You fall in love by working on the relationship and you stay in love by working
on the relationship. This requires the essential Christ like attributes and
many prayers for personal repentance. After making that commitment I need to
forget about the person I thought I married and just look ahead to work on
loving the person I did marry. If there’s anything I catch myself thinking I’d
like to change about my spouse, instead I need to look and change something
about myself.
Third, since God has given me the choice of my eternal companion,
technically I believe I can love more than one person. With almost any
righteous priesthood holder we can work together with an eye single to the
glory of God to work on creating a beautiful marriage. I can find “the one” I
will spend eternity with, but “the one” could technically be anyone. Finally I just
need to keep faith and confidence in Heavenly Father’s personal plan for me. He
will provide me in His own timing with a righteous, eternal spouse in which I
will create a beautiful family with.
(Angela's wedding at the San Diego temple in September 2011 with me to the left of my father)
Some of the best marriage preparation is to be truly happily single.
Having the righteous desire of eternal
marriage is good, but knowing your motives behind that desire shouldn’t be
because you’re looking for a fix to your own problems. Marriage doesn’t fix
your problems. I think if you have personal unresolved problems you bring into
your marriage it will actually damage the relationship or just make it even
harder. Everyone has their own baggage they will naturally carry into the
relationship, but the less the better. When we marry we marry that persons
problems as well, but we made that choice.
(Seattle Temple with me on left and sister Angela on right)
~Started here within my parents covenant and will return to His holy temple to covenant with my own eternal companion "for time and all eternity". What a beautiful phrase.~
I
must embrace my singleness with a genuine smile on my face. Trudging around being
sad that girls like me aren’t married won’t do any good. This attitude will
actually do much worse. Not only does it detract from the Spirit, but it’ll either
attract the wrong guy or it’ll take you longer to find the right one. Even
worse is to just settle for less and jump into marriage for the fact that you
wanted marriage. The hierarchy of singleness clearly explains how being happily
married is the highest with being happily single, sadly single, and sadly
married last. Another exercise perfect for marriage preparation is to not blame
others or myself for my singleness. It’s not necessarily my fault I’m not
married and it isn’t the guys fault. I shouldn’t compare my marriage journey to
another girl because we are totally different people. This way of positive thinking
surely will carry over into a happier marriage. I will already have established
a habit of not blaming my spouse for problems and not comparing myself to him. My
happiness through the single life will convert beautifully into being even
happier in the married life.
In conclusion, the
key to a happy, eternal marriage is ultimately living the gospel of Jesus
Christ. I know through using the atonement in daily repentance and following
the example of Christ we can become more like Him. With this knowledge there is
peace and joy in an everlasting covenant marriage.
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