"A bride sighed blissfully on her wedding day, “Mom, I’m at
the end of all my troubles!” “Yes,” replied her mother, “but at which end?”
As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,
we believe that marriage is a commitment for eternity. We make sacred
marriage covenants in temples, which are specifically built for this purpose,
of creating unions where man and wife can be together forever.
Bruce C. Hafen of the Quorum of the Seventy of the Church said,
"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."
However, in my own experience, when troubles come to a covenant
marriage, we work through them. When a commitment for eternity is made,
it encourages individuals to look past tomorrow, and instead, far into the
future. Over the years, my husband and I have experienced adversity as
we've endured financial troubles, opposing points of view on how to raise
difficult teens, and addiction which crept into our relationship - slicing away
at the core of our commitment to each other. It was only our commitment
to a covenant marriage - patience, charity, forgiveness and other
Christ-like attributes towards each other that aided in our time of need.
Elder Hafen goes
on to say, “Marriage is by nature a covenant, not
just a private contract one may cancel at will. Jesus taught about contractual
attitudes when he described the “hireling,” who performs his conditional
promise of care only when he receives something in return. When the hireling
“seeth the wolf coming,” he “leaveth the sheep, and fleeth ... because he ...
careth not for the sheep.” By contrast, the Savior said, “I am the good shepherd,
... and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Many people today marry as
hirelings. And when the wolf comes, they flee. This idea is wrong. It curses
the earth, turning parents’ hearts away from their children and from each
other."
To this end I owe the strength of my own marriage of twenty-eight
years. A commitment for eternity is more than a simple earthly contract
of "to have and to hold, until death do us part." Over the years, as
the difficulties of marriage and life have hit us hard, it is our eternal
covenant that has kept us together.
To end my post, my question
to us all is, how does an eternal perspective to marriage give it strength through
the adversity of everyday living? And, shouldn't a loving God want to
give this opportunity to all his children living on this earth? To find
out, go to this link. It shows what The Church of Jesus Christ believes
about eternal marriage.
References -
Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen, The Belonging Heart (1994), 255–65;
Pitirim Sorokin, Society, Culture and Personality, 2nd ed. (1962), 99–107.
Hafen, Bruce C., “Covenant Marriage,” Ensign, Nov 1996, 26
Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and
Community (1993), 137–39; emphasis added.
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