WE BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE

2.12.2014

Since all four of us are married and all four of us are under the age of 26 you could have probably guessed that marriage is a huge part of our lives and religion. One of our church leaders described it in this way,

"Marriage is the foundry for social order, the fountain of virtue, and the foundation for eternal exaltation. Marriage has been divinely designated as an eternal and everlasting covenant. Marriage is sanctified when it is cherished and honored in holiness; it embraces a partnership with God" —Russell M. Nelson“Nurturing Marriage,” Ensign, May 2006, 36

Based on that quote you can tell how important it is to our existence to be married. To us, it is the "foundation for eternal exaltation". Though a lot of members of our faith decide to get married young, that is not necessarily a requirement of us to get married in our early twenties. But because it is such an important goal to help us reach our highest capacity as beings, people of our faith {in our society... meaning the Western United States} tend to make it a priority in their early adulthood. If you want to find more resources about what our church believes click here, here and here. (just a few I liked)

Because I value marriage so much I am always happy to find studies and articles that suggest ideas to improve the quality of marriage. {Let's face it, a large portion of the marriages in our society end in divorce these days or people are just choosing not to get married with the fear of future divorce -- not getting married seems to take that pressure off} Anyway, yesterday I happened upon an article from the Huffington Post who found  this amazing info graphic from happify.com (a company that has a mission to use "science and technology to empower individuals to lead happier lives" -- so cool!) Though I do have my own opinions and questions about some of the things it suggests, I read it and was all about it. In fact, it really touched me and made me realize there are things I need to do to better my relationship with my husband. Take a look below and tell me what you think!
2014-02-11-hap3001_7201.png

I just want to finish my post by telling you a little bit about a personal experience I had yesterday. So I read this at work and felt so many mixed emotions, happiness about some of the things I feel like we do well like we have a great friendship and we share so many experiences together. But I also felt sad, sad about the things I know I am not doing right. Sad about the things I need to do better to show my love for my husband. So I decided to make something out of my sadness then and there -- I think sadness is a wonderful emotion as long and we take actions to make something of that emotion. I made a list on my phone of things I need to improve on to make sure I am treating my husband well. But that list was not where I stopped. I made a conscious decision to make sure I kept this in my heart and used these tips starting that day. The first thing I decided to do was to make sure I would be very happy when my husband picked me up after work. I'll admit it, when I come home from work I am not usually the happiest... actually most of the time one of the first things I say is venting about something from my day at work. So I decided to run to the car with a huge smile on my face and ask my husband first how his day was and made sure he was my priority. Through out the night I decided to keep my list of improvements up (looking back at my list today I actually did most of them!)

I am not telling you this to say hey look at me look how good I am. I want to tell you what happened after I made an effort to make my marriage happier and treat my husband right. I had seriously the best night I have had in a long time. We danced and sang and talked and laughed like all night long. It made me realize I needed to do this not only to make my husband happy but to make me happy too. Not only did my efforts to be better to my husband help him be happier but just out of whatever, Clark ended up doing things that completely fill my cup of love to max capacity -- to the point of making me feel so loved I even cried. I know he was not consciously doing things like I was but because I was being so kind and loving to him he did so in return just naturally. It's not like we don't show each other love... we are actually incredibly loving people. But something about last night was different. Something about last night made me feel so full and loved and connected and I loved it.

I hope you will do all you can to have wonderful relationships with people in your life. For those of you who are married or hope to be married someday, I hope you take the time to make your partner happy.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!  
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