I am starting a new series on top of the several others. This series will come out most every Wednesday until it is complete. This series will be loosely based on a church publication which my wife and I are enjoying very much. However, rather than just regurgitating the publication, I am going to take some liberty and put my own spin on it and adding personal anecdotes. This will be a multi-part series that will delve into how to foster stronger relationships with your spouse, children, and extended family. My wife and I have been reading this in the evenings, just a couple paragraphs at a time, then we discuss the subject matter at hand. It has been very valuable resource for us.
In this series, I’m going to be unapologetic about my Christian side. I will try to keep the LDS specific stuff out. Normally, I try to dance around the issue to avoid offending any atheists out there. Frankly, we need church to have strong families. It is a set of standards we can adhere to. It provides a constitution in our home. If we don’t force ourselves to some established set of values, we will be morally adrift like most of society today. My parents are good people, been married for 50+ years, but we never went to any church as kids. I was a convert to the LDS church at 23, so I do have experience both inside and outside of church. I don’t think it is any coincidence that my own family is the only one that has a simple, nuclear family of us four siblings.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with me and my family, we have been happily married 17 years now, with six kids. During this time, my wife has been a full time mother, she homeschools the kids, and has tried her best to live as a traditional housewife should. I work to support the family, I take on most of the leadership role, try to be a good father figure and do quite a bit of the maintenance around the home. More on our roles in Part 2.
Part 1 - Understand God’s Plan
We are the literal spirit sons and daughters of God. We are created in his image. (Romans 8). We lived with him as spirits before we were born. (Jeremiah 1) As spirit sons and daughters, we learned many things, but we were unable to learn certain things or have children of our own without gaining a body. This is why God created Earth and everything on the Earth. Here, we can learn how to have dominion over things, how to grow, we learn what pain feels like, the good and bad with having children, overcome weaknesses, and many other things we cannot learn in a hunky-dory existence floating on a cloud, strumming a harp.
Unfortunately, we cannot live a life in an unclean world or learn how to overcome sin and not become unclean ourselves. This is where Christ comes in. We can be cleansed of the worldly stains if we accept him and follow him.
A major part of God’s plan is for us to learn to be more like him. That involves building, creating, having children, leading our family and loving those we are responsible for. As we do so, we can find happiness and satisfaction in life and in the eternity to come.
After God created the world, he put Adam there. Alone, Adam could not fulfill the measure of his creation. He needed Eve to create a family with and multiply. Additionally, God allowed Satan to tempt them to take of the fruit of knowledge (also placed there by God). This created a necessary separation between God and man in which we could grow.
Although I personally believe the story of the Garden of Eden to be symbolic in representing the cause of the separation between God and Mankind, it does highlight how we needed this separation to happen. Just as a kid who continues to live with his parents will not be able to progress beyond a certain point, we too need move out of our parent's basement to learn how to be responsible for ourselves and others and to mature.
By having a strong nuclear family, we can do just that. We learn to put aside our selfish desires and put the needs of others above our own. Until we learn to care for others in such a way, we will be focused on ourselves. Finding true joy in life is a journey best suited as groups of individuals, something we can not easily do alone.
Application
Perhaps this sounds like a bunch of religious jargon with little real world application to many of you. Almost 17 years ago, we got married, and with that ceremony, a new family was created. 9 months later, we had our first kid. In essence, my wife and I were allowed to create something eternal, first with the bond of marriage, and second, the new child that will be bound to us in the eternities (if we all honor the covenant).
With that, we are living life, learning to love, learning to overcome jealousy, rage, and a million other things we can only learn here on Earth. Knowing that God has a plan for us, and this plan is created by the most intelligent being in existence provides a lot of confidence in what is taught in Sunday School. We can know that bad things happen for a reason, and we can grow as we do our best to follow His teachings. Also, we will see our family come become physically, spiritually and socially stronger as a whole.
Assignment: In this series, I will be making assignments for you to follow with your spouse. None of them are things we do not (at least try to) do ourselves. Pick up the Bible and start at Genesis. Read one chapter out loud with your wife every night.
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