Faith in Family Life

  One of the things that I did not grow up with a lot was a sense of religion. I remember as a kid I went with one of my friends to a church gathering and it was strange to me. To give a little context, my parents did not attend church while I was growing up and we did not join a church until I was 15. Now I don't blame my parents for not raising me in a religion, but I did have many friends who were part of a church, but none of them ever invited me to come with them. Now this wasn't their fault because they didn't know that I was looking for a sense of spiritual direction in my life.

     I find it interesting to note that very many communities in this nation are held together because of the bond of religion that they have in common. The same goes for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we come together as communities to help other members of the congregation. But it doesn't stop there, we reach out around the world to those that stand in need. The church is among one of the first to respond to natural disasters and other disasters around the world. Faith is something that causes us to act upon what we believe and pursue it to see the outcomes as Christ would.

     Now within our families, faith pushes us to follow the example of Christ and lead our families through revelation. There are multiple things that we can do as families to make sure that our faith is central to how our families operate. Things such as reading scriptures, praying (whether it be over meals, in the morning or evening, or before people leave the house), and going to church. All these things revolve around the family and brings us closer together through the experiences we share. Through my experiences and those that I've heard from others, many families have come to realize that their faith brought them closer together through whatever challenge that they went through.

     Now I understand that you don't need to have faith in your life or in your family to get through challenges. There are many people out there that do not believe in a higher power or a God-like figure and good for them! I have no problem with those kinds of people that don't believe in a higher power. I just believe that they are going through life without the extra help that some people need in their lives.

     Just remember that even though someone may share a different view of religion than you do, don't fight them to see everything your way. If we were all the same, everything would be boring and very depressing. Our differences is what makes us interesting and makes this world so amazing. I find the world so interesting and all the religions in the world make history and current events so interesting. Each of our faiths circle around a certain set of morals and while we may not agree on certain things, we should make sure that we don;t fight over these differences,

     Now I just want to focus on the family and how faith holds it together. Faith is such a great thing to help us increase our trust in the one person who knows us better than we know ourselves. Faith helps us overcome fear and become more like the person that He wants us to become. We as families need to remember that we are not perfect, but we are working towards becoming what we have potential to become.

 

Cold, Hard Facts about Marriage

     I realize that I have been painting marriage as something that is warm and smiley and everything is hunky dory. But there are things that your parents and others will not teach you before and after you get married.

                             

                              

     Now I'm not saying that there are a lot of things you have to watch for, but there are certain things that need to be out there in the open so that you know about them.

     In  our day and age, the media and the news are only showing the downsides of marriage. Couples are getting divorced on t.v., others show that one night stands and sleeping around is the norm and is to be celebrated when it happens. The thing that we need to reconsider is, are we spending enough time on our relationships/marriages to make sure that our foundation we built won't be shaken?


     Turning to a happier note, with married couples there comes with it a string of benefits. Benefits such as longer, happier lives and lower risks of depression, which lead to overall better mental health. Marriage also helps both parties by offering higher levels of social integration and is a source of emotional support  from which both spouses draw a sense of being esteemed, valued, and cared about. What things about your relationship do you cherish the most?

     Especially with the other variation of marriage that are out there, such as cohabitation, lacks the necessary building blocks and experiences that marriage offers us. Many people who live together without any intent of getting married feel like their lives are less fulfilling. They also experienced decreased levels of happiness, health, and financial security. Quite interesting how this happens, right? Why is this the case? Is there something about marriage that keeps people together and increases their chances of happiness?

     Now in my opinion, I never thought about living with another person before I was married and I wasn't even a member of the church. Now a little backstory on my life, my parents were both members in their younger years, but fell away and chose to live different lifestyles. But throughout all that time, they kept the standards of the church in their lives and raised us kids with these standards throughout our lives. It was quite interesting to see the similarities when I joined the church and how my parents raised us. But my parents have gone through ups and down in their marriage and I have seen the effects of some decisions, but they always made sure that they worked things out.

     Now I know that many people did not grow up with this being possible, but we want to make sure that in some cases we do not become like our parents. We must make sure that we exemplify the best part of our parents and drop the ones that we find less than endearing.

Equal Partnership between Men and Women

     Going off of y last post a bit about spending quality family time together, who should initiate the time spent together? Should the father because he's the head of the household? Or should the mother because she spends the most time with the kids? There are so many different possibilities that could happen that you can't just pick one. But you should counsel together and share the amount of responsibility together and this applies to anything that happens in marriage.



     As quoted in Successful Marriages and Families, Elder Earl C. Tingey said, "You must not misunderstand what the Lord meant when Adam was told he was to have a helpmeet. A helpmeet is a companion suited to or equal to us. We walk side by side with a helpmeet, not one before or behind the other. A helpmeet results in an absolute equal partnership between a husband and a wife. Eve was to be equal to Adam as a husband and wife are to be equal to each other (Hawkins, Dollahite, Draper; 2012). Elder Tingey, now an Emeritus Seventy, was the sealer at my wedding a little over a year ago and I remember the feeling that I had as I listened to him speak about marriage and the blessings that come from living the commandments.

     Elder Tingey talked about the Plan of Happiness and the act of Eve in partaking of the forbidden fruit. It was not a folly of her choosing, but a wise choice that she made in order to make sure that we had the opportunity to come here to earth and experience life. In the scriptures it does not directly state that Adam and Eve were married, but we know that during their relationship/marriage, they made sure to keep the Lord in every counsel they held.

     By doing this in our marriages/relationships, we are opening the door to revelation and help within our marriages/relationships. We cannot rely merely alone on our own knowledge as we go through this life. For example, you need both spouses receiving revelation when you have a family and this allows you to determine what is best for your family because Heavenly Father won't leave us empty-handed.

     So when you feel like your marriage/relationship is suffering, make sure that you both sit down together and discuss what it is you feel is going wrong and work out a plan of how to help each other. If this doesn't work, make sure to go and ask Heavenly Father about what you think you should do to help your marriage/relationship. Heavenly Father is always there to help us in our times of need and we need to make sure that we keep him on the loop of our relationships and he will always steer us in the right direction. Just keep that in mind.

Wholesome Family Recreation

     I want to paint you a little picture, imagine you are out in public, say at a restaurant, and you look around at all the other people that are there and all you can see is families on their phones and not talking to each other. You think to yourself, "Boy I'm glad that isn't my family!" and as you look back you realize that the same thing has happened to your family. Does this sound familiar?

     Remember the good 'ol days when you would go outside and your imagination took over and it would take you anywhere? What happened to those days? I remember whenever I was bored and I told my mom, she would say to me, "You're bored? I'll give you something better to do!" to which I would respond, "No I'm okay, I'll go find something to do". Ah, good times and memories from my childhood, but back then we only had dial-up internet and I remember that it was so slow! But in my family we only ever used the computer if we had to do a project for school or get directions somewhere. The rest of the time we were outside playing or helping our parents around the house, there was no time for technology.

     But now in our fast-paced world, information changes at incredible speeds and is only getting faster every day. We have to stay connected in order to stay up to date with what's happening around the world. Remember that picture I painted you at the beginning? Well that's what this life looks like now, everyone posting on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat of their food that they ordered from the restaurant before they eat it, #foodislyfe.

     But you know things were so much simpler I feel, back when I was a kid. I mean as far back as I can remember I was a pretty happy kid, I didn't have all of this technology that exists now. For fun we would go on family trips up to Utah or Montana (I call New Mexico home btw) and we would visit aunts and uncles and grandparents along the way. We didn't have cellphones in the car or DVD players, we had books or we would play the license plate game. I cherish those memories not because they were boring, but because it was time that I got to spend with my family and we grew together.

 

That is what is missing from our lives these days, we don't spend enough time together with our families. We don't do recreational activities together and we don't just sit and talk at the dinner table about how our day was or what we learned at school. We need to put the phones down and reconnect with the people that matter in our lives. Now I understand that there are things that you can't control in your life so that you can find time to get away from work and school and obligations to just go out and have fun together, but plan to make that time happen and include other family members ideas in what they would like to do. But most of all make sure no one is left behind or forgotten.

The Proclamation and the Effect on our Lives

     The Proclamation has been a great revelation for our day and age, it has enlightened so many members of the church and those around the world as to what the church believes about families. Many families are being torn apart because of divorce and abuse, so the Lord revealed to his prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley what it was that He wanted members and leaders of the communities to follow and uphold.

     This document has given us guidance for individuals and families and taught us how the Lord would have us raise the generation that comes after us. It may seem scary at first, but that is why we have prophets and apostles and revelation from the Lord to guide us through this life. 

     The reason this document was given to us is because the family is under attack. I don't mean that someone is targeting your family, but that the morals and foundations that our families are built upon are being attacked. So many children are growing up without both parents or infidelity has torn it apart. Many things such as permissive values, secularism, selfishness and immorality has made the responsibility to build strong families more challenging and more important.

     We can make sure in our daily lives to have this document near us or framed in our home as a reminder of what it is that we want our family to follow and uphold. Make sure to include it in everyday talk about events going on around the world and teach your families what the Lord has revealed and give family members opportunities to gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the document as well.