Why Marriage is Essential?
As
I pondered this week on my genogram, I was thinking about my grandparents. They
had not easy lives, because they had experienced two wars. The most difficult
for them was the World War II, when they should survive and care about their
children and families. There were times of danger, hunger and hard work. The
grandparents from my mum’s side were Catholics, and form dad’s side - were
Lutherans. As I have observed them, they did not have very happy marriages and
emotional closeness, but they stayed together and survived all challenges. I
suppose, because they had responsibility before each other and the Lord, they
stayed faithful to the covenant they have made in their churches.
Their children, my aunts and uncles lived
in the different social order. They experienced as children the German’s
occupation, then Russians occupation, when the religion was not accepted, even
forbidden. The most of them had civil marriages, but only few marriages were
stable and have not been divorced. I can see how covenant with the Lord helps
people to esteem marriage institution and keep them stronger and more protect
from divorce.
I am only member of LDS Church in my kindred. I
have sealed a temple marriage with my husband. We have made a promise in the
temple that we will keep our covenants with each other and with The Lord. This
everlasting and new covenant of marriage has sealed by the divine authority and
power of the priesthood not only for this life, but for eternity. We believe that in the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints we have priesthood authority to seal marriages also for
eternity. When I have sealed my marriage with my husband, I had determination
to do everything I could to make my marriage happy and complete, that I would
desire to live with my husband and my children in happy relationships for ever.
I am still progressing in that, and I love to do that.
I have studied this week also some
talks of prophets of our Church about meaning of marriage and I would like to
share with some thoughts from them. Why we are sealing off temple marriages?
President of the Church Ezra T. Benson taught: “How did Adam bring his descendants
into the presence of the Lord? The answer: Adam and his descendants entered
into the priesthood order of God. Today we would say they went to the House of
the Lord (the Temple) and received their blessings…. This order is described in
modern revelation as an order of family government where a man and woman enter
into a covenant with God—just as did Adam and Eve—to be sealed for eternity, to
have posterity, and to do the will and work of God throughout their mortality.
If a couple are true to their covenants, they are entitled to the blessing of
the highest degree of the celestial Kingdom.” We believe that we could
live with Our Heavenly Father in His kingdom.
As elder Bednar emphasized in his
talk “Marriage is Essential”: “The eternal nature and importance of marriage can be fully
understood only within the overarching context of the Father’s plan for 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 … has a
divine nature and destiny.” The great plan of happiness enables the
spirit sons and daughters of Heavenly Father to obtain physical bodies, to gain
earthly experience, and to progress toward perfection…. By divine design, men
and women are intended to progress together toward perfection and a fullness of
glory. Because of their distinctive temperaments and capacities, males and
females each bring to a marriage relationship unique perspectives and
experiences. The man and the woman contribute differently but equally to a
oneness and a unity that can be achieved in no other way. The man completes and
perfects the woman and the woman completes and perfects the man as they learn
from and mutually strengthen and bless each other. “Neither is the man without
the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:11; italics added).”
Covenant we have made in the Temple
gave us additional divine power and blessings: We “will receive the spirit of
Elijah, which will turn our hearts to your spouse, to our children, and to our
forebears”; we “will love our family with a deeper love than we have loved
before. “ (Ezra T. Benson).
I liked how elder Bruce C. Hafen
described difference between contract marriage and covenant marriage: “When
troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by
walking away. They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as
they’re receiving what they bargained for. But when troubles come to a covenant
marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to
grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract
companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100
percent.” He also named the three most common challenges in our society, what marriages
have met; he called them “three wolfes”: natural adversities, spouses’ “own
imperfections and excessive individualism, which is so common in our society.
Covenant spouses are willing and able to sacrifice. Elder Hafen closed with a
prayer: “May
we restore the concept of marriage as a covenant, even the new and everlasting
covenant of marriage. And when the wolf comes, may we be as shepherds, not
hirelings, willing to lay down our lives, a day at a time, for the sheep of our
covenant. Then, like Adam and Eve, we will have joy.”
I would like to be a transitional
object in my kindred to turn back my relatives into marriage, and particularly
to covenant marriage, in which spouses lovingly overcoming the challenges and
happily relating. This is my motivation to study about principles of successful
marriage.
0 comments: