We ended up speaking about 26 minutes. We got lots of laughs and giggles from the audience as we tried to give realistic thoughts and ideas. I think it would be good to cut and paste a few of our thoughts. As/If you read this note that the *is the part Janet gave and the #is the part that Wayne gave.
*We all know about the miracle of the manna, when
Jehovah provided daily bread from heaven to the people of Israel as they
wandered in the wilderness after leaving Egypt.
Each morning, manna would appear as the dew dried from the ground and
people were to gather enough for just that day—except on the day before the
Sabbath, when they were to gather enough for two days—or else it would spoil. Each
evening, Jehovah sent quail so the Israelites would have meat. The Lord also provided water for his people
after Moses struck the rock of Horeb, and it gushed forth enough water to
quench the thirst of an entire nation for one year.
* As those daily needs of the Israelites were met…their
faith and trust in God and His Son grew. It is essential to understand that we
also have daily needs such as literal bread, food, and water.
* Even the mundane and repetitious things of life…like
going out to gather manna each morning, can be tiny but significant building
blocks that in time establish faith and trust. As the Israelites gathered,
Christ could never have been too far from their minds and hearts.
# There is a spiritual parallel of these miracles in our
day. We all recognize the need for
physical nourishment. Hunger and thirst
remind us very strongly if we forget to eat.
But the spiritual need for nourishment is equally strong. It comes not in drinking water and eating
food, but in our constant, daily efforts of communion with God. We ought not to think that we can go weeks
and months without spiritual nourishment and not suffer— it will become a
deadening influence in our spiritual life.
*What we would like to discuss tonight, is to how these
two things, daily bead and daily communion with God can also be related to our
personal relationships and marriages. Love
and marriage also need nourishment…daily portions of sacrifice, service and
tiny repetitions of expressions of affection.
* I recently read an article where the author told
about the marriage of one of their friends.
He said it could be typical of many marriages. He said, occasionally the
husband would get irritated and begin to carp on his wife’s faults and
limitations. “Why isn’t the house clean” “Why haven’t the kids done their
chores?” When will dinner be ready?” The wife bore the nagging as long as she
could. On one occasion she grew weary
and reacted…”You know, you have faults too!” And the husband replied, “Yes, but
they don’t bother me like yours do!”
# This is precisely the wrong strategy for strengthening a relationship. It assumes
that my needs are to be met—and my spouse must do whatever is necessary to
assure that they are met. This is the
opposite of humility and repentance. It is prideful and it is the enemy of love.
* God has graciously given each of us an early
warning system. When we are feeling
irked, annoyed, or irritated with our spouse, we can know at that point that we
have our backs toward heaven. We are
guilty of pride. In a spiritual sense we
are saying to our spouses, “You are not meeting my needs the way I would like
them met. Don’t you realize that is your job?” Your every act is to be
dedicated to my happiness.
* In Mosiah 3:19 it says
For the natural man is an
enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and
ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the
natural man
# The natural man is inclined to
love himself and fix others. God has
asked us to do just the opposite. We are
to fix ourselves by repenting, and to
love others. It is not surprising that we have difficulties in marriages or
relationships. We so often do the very
things that will destroy them.
# One of Satan’s main efforts is to
get people to begin questioning their marriage choice. A man and woman fall in love; they get
married, and out of their love come children.
The problem is how to keep this love alive and growing, for love
requires constant attention. Unless it
is nourished by constant care, it will shrivel and die, just as a plant will
without water. The most important thing
we can do to nourish love in our marriage is to live the 1st great
commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind.” (Matt 22:37).
* Our Heavenly Father is the source
of all truth and all love. By loving Him
we draw close to Him and become more like him. As that happens, we receive from
Him the knowledge and power to love our spouse, to better nurture their love,
and to meet the daily challenges in our home.
As we love God…He gradually teaches us and gives us the power to love as
He loves.
# We come to realize that the mere
performance of a ceremony does not bring happiness and a successful
marriage. Happiness does not come by
pressing a button or signing your name on a license. Happiness is a state of mind and comes from
within. Happiness is NOT an activity, happiness is an attitude. Some consider
a happy marriage to be a glamorous life of ease, luxury, and constant thrills;
but true marriage happiness comes from giving, serving, sharing, sacrificing
and selflessness.
* You may ask “What is the price of
happiness”? President Spencer W. Kimball said: “You will be surprised with the
simplicity of the answer”. He said, “The
treasure house of happiness may be unlocked and remain open to those who use
the following keys.
1. You must
live the gospel of Jesus Christ…not with a halfhearted compliance, but hewing
to the line, and this means an all-out devoted consecration to the great
program of salvation and exaltation.
# 2. You must
forget yourself and love your companion more than yourself. If you do these
things, happiness will be yours in great and never failing abundance.
# Two people coming from different
backgrounds soon learn after the ceremony is performed that stark reality must
be faced. Some personal freedoms must be relinquished and many
adjustments-unselfish adjustments-must be made.
# Marriage is full of “tempests in
teapots”, which is an idiom meaning a small event that has been exaggerated out
of proportion. We bristle over our partner’s word
choice or disinterest in our story. We fret and complain about this purchase or
that insensitivity. We grumble about a chore neglected or a kindness unnoticed.
We may be bothered by indecisiveness, hygiene, grammar, food preferences,
clothing style, personality, stubbornness…the list is endless! Over time we
transform these irritations into evils. We have to remember that Faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ provides eternal perspective.
# If we replace judgment and
condemnation of each other with compassion and love, we not only find more peace,
more serenity and more tranquility, but also become one smidgen more like God.
* When our focus is on the
unpleasant and mundane, we trivialize everything. What a shame for noblemen and
noblewomen who are on a journey Home to a King! For the Latter-day Saints, God has opened
visions of eternity. We have seen His
face in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
We have felt His relentless redemptiveness in the great plan of happiness.
# Satan knows that
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His redemptive power are enemies to his
cause. Satan’s best hope is to keep us distracted, from looking up. He must keep us fully absorbed with the
trivial, fretting over our inconveniences and stewing over our grievances.
# When we have an
eternal perspective on our marriages, everything is different. Filled with faith, we might adapt Jesus’
advice as our mantra: “Look unto to me in every thought; doubt not, fear
not…and we might add…fret not, panic not” (D&C 6:36)
# After that we can go
one step further. When we have vibrant faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know
that the irritations and challenges of marriage are blessings…that are intended
to develop our character.
# As we turn from the
ways of the natural man to the ways of Christ, we will respond to our
challenges differently. Instead of
judging our partner, we will invite Christ to soften our hearts and fill us
with goodness. No challenges or differences in marriage can thwart the work of God-given
charity.
* President Howard W.
Hunter taught that: “whatever Jesus lays his hands upon--lives. If Jesus lays his hands upon a marriage, it
lives. If he is allowed to lay his hands
on the family, it lives”.
* It is said that
we go to the temple to make covenants, but we go home to keep
covenants. As we go to the temple, make covenants…and then go home and keep
to those covenants…we bring the spirit of Christ and our Heavenly Father into
our homes. With them as our guide and
through the enticings or promptings of the Holy
Spirit, our homes will become a testing ground.
We will learn to be more Christ like.
We will learn to overcome selfishness and to give ourselves in service
to those we love and to others.
*According to Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “The affections
and thoughtfulness required in the home is not an abstract exercise in
love. Family life is an encounter with
selfishness, with the need for politeness, of taking turns of being hurt and
yet forgiving, and of being at the mercy of others’ moods. Family life is a constant challenge…”
# President Gordon B. Hinckley has said: “Quiet talk is
the language of love. It is the language
of peace. It is the language of
God…Cultivate the art of the soft answer. Is it a wonder why we describe the
Holy Ghost as the Still Small Voice?
# President Hinckley has promised four areas that
will be blessed when we follow the direction to use quiet talk.
·
It will bless your homes,
·
it will bless your lives,
·
it will bless your companionship,
·
it will bless your children”.
# Love and marriage are like a flower, and like the
body. Tender love cannot be expected to
last forever unless it is continually fed with portions of love, the
manifestation of esteem and admiration, the expressions of gratitude and the consideration
of unselfishness.
If of thy mortal goods thou are bereft,
And from thy slender store, two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole; buy hyacinths to feed the soul.
As taught in the scriptures, an eternal bond doesn’t
just happen as a result of sealing covenants we make in the temple. How we conduct ourselves in this life will
determine what we will be in all the eternities to come. To receive the blessings of the sealing that
our Heavenly Father has given to us, we have to keep the commandments and
conduct ourselves in such a way that our families will want to live with us in
the eternities.
Be sure that your life is right. Be sure your
marriage is right. Be sure that your
part of the marriage is carried forward properly.
We felt good about the final results of days of preparation and practice.
