This Sunday I was asked to give a talk in our Sacrament Meeting at church. The topic was Celestial Families, something I feel strongly about! Feel free to read my thoughts on the topic:
Eestablishing and maintaining a
celestial family.
-I’d like to add that I believe that a celestial home is never
fully established. We each fall short, it is in our nature to sin. We are
striving for the goal of a celestial
home. If a celestial home is 100% attainable 100% of the time, my husband and I
haven’t quite reached it yet in our home! Each action we all take in the home,
whether positive or negative brings us closer or further from that goal. Some
days we may feel we’ve succeeded in establishing a celestial environment and
some days we may not. It’s best to remember that as long as we are, on average,
moving upward nearing a celestial family and home we can go to bed at night
satisfied with our efforts.
Brother Eran A. Call states in his talk, "The Home: A
Refuge and a Sanctuary," The home is being threatened and challenged more
today than ever before. Today less than half
of the children born in the United States, and in many countries in the world,
will spend their entire childhood in an intact family. Infidelity, divorce,
abortion, and abandoned homes are on the increase. The father is rapidly losing
his traditional role as caregiver, breadwinner, protector, moral educator, and
head of the family. During 1960 to 1990, births outside of marriage in the
United States increased 500 percent
and divorce increased 400 percent.
As Church members, we are not free from these sinful practices.” He
states, “ The home and the family are the fundamental unit of society: as the
homes are and families are so will be the community, the city, the state, and
the nation.”
President Harold B. Lee said, “The greatest of the Lord’s
work you brethren will ever do as fathers will be within the walls of your own
home.” Similarly, President David O.
McKay’s warned “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” I
love that quote, “No other success can compensate for failure in the
home.” No awards or high paying job can
make up for a lack of involvement in the home.
He continues, “The poorest shack in which love prevails over
a united family is of greater value to God and future humanity than any other
riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles.”
“Our homes can be, and should be, a refuge and a sanctuary
from the troubled world we live in; may they become such by striving daily to
keep sacred the holy covenants we have made.”
The Family: A Proclamation to the World states, The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and
woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within
the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor
marital vows with complete fidelity.”
It continues, "Successful marriages and families are
established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance,
forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational
activities."
It does not say successful marriages and families are
automatically formed upon marriage in the temple, or elsewhere. It does not say
if your parents had a successful or unsuccessful marriage yours is bound to be
the same way. And it doesn’t say it will always be easy. It provides ways for each of us to establish
and maintain successful, gospel centered families, it’s a choice each couple
can make, or not.
In order to build a celestial marriage and family the gospel
must be central. The Lord must be welcomed into our home and play a role in our
affairs. We must be willing to express faith through prayer and repentance.
Without those key elements the spirit cannot abide in the home. I love that the
list includes work and wholesome recreational activities! Marriage takes work!
Albeit sometimes harder work than others it takes some sort of effort
nonetheless.
Participating in wholesome recreational activities means
having fun together! We find that spending time as a family brings us so much
happiness. It allows us to grow as a unit, to be able to have learning
experiences and bond together. It teaches us to compromise to participate in
various activities that the other likes. We enjoy going out to eat together or
going on a family walk. As our daughter grows we are finding that time together,
just the three of us, allows us to determine what type of parenting style we
want to use and what type of parents we want to be. Mostly, spending time
having fun together brings us happiness. As we have been told, “Men are that
they might have joy.” And, the family is central to God’s plan for us. I’d like
to think that happiness in the family is also a large part of God’s plan.
Elder N. Eldon Tanner
gave a talk in 1980 titled Celestial Marriages and Eternal Families. He
said, “The happy home is one where the family lives together, works together,
plays together, and prays together; where the parents show love and courtesy
and demonstrate it to each other. Love is expressed often through actions and
by the spoken word. We should not be like the Scotsman who, at the death of his
wife, was receiving expressions of sympathy from his friends. One neighbor
commented on what a fine person she was. He replied, “Aye, she was a good
woman, and I came near telling her so once or twice.”
The proclamation states, “Husband and
wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and
for their children. “Children are an heritage of the Lord” Parents have a sacred duty to rear their
children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual
needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the
commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands
and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the
discharge of these obligations.”
We have been taught by ancient and modern prophets that “the
establishment of a home is not only a privilege, but marriage and proper
training of children is a duty of the highest order.” The prophets of Israel
taught, “Ye shall teach your children [the commandments] when thou sittest in
thine house.”
It is not simply
enough to follow the commandment given to Adam and Eve to “multiply and
replenish the earth.” As parents striving to create a celestial family we must
ensure that our children are made aware and held to the commandments. They need
to be taught the gospel and expected to abide by its teachings no matter the
circumstances. It’s much easier to cave and allow children to go with the
current trends and standards of their friends, but the Lord did not put us on
the earth to be one in a crowd. We are not meant to be “just like the others.”
As adults and as children we are held to a high standard. We are meant to be
different. The Lord needs faithful, gospel sharing members. We each can be that
by striving to build a celestial home and family.
Elder Tanner said, “Parents have a responsibility to teach
their children the importance of keeping themselves clean and pure, with high
moral standards, so they will be worthy of the kind of men and women with whom
they want to associate and marry. It has
been said that a man breeding livestock is very careful about what he allows in
the pasture with his prize animals, but he lets his son or daughter go with
anyone without checking on their credentials.”
I have such a strong testimony of the importance of marriage
and family so much so that it’s what I decided to study in college. It saddens
me to see how marriage is being placed behind so many other priorities.
An article was shared
at our young married institute class in our last ward in Harrisonburg titled
“Marry Young” by Julia Shaw. She discusses how marriages in pop culture just
don’t last. Celebrities, as a whole, use marriage as a short term popularity
booster, spend an immense amount of money on the wedding and are divorced a
short time later. Shaw says, “pop culture tracks reality. Only 21 percent of
millennials (those ages 18-29) are married, and the median age for marriage is
the highest in generations: almost 27 for women and 29 for men. By comparison,
29 percent of Generation X, 42 percent of Boomers, and 54 percent of the Silent
Generation (born 1928 through 1945) were married by that age.” What those statistics
show is that fewer couples are getting married young.
She continues, “Marriage these days signals that you’ve
figured out how to be a grown-up. You’ve played the field and backpacked
Europe. You’ve “arrived,” having finished school, settled into a career path,
bought a condo, figured out who you are, and found your soul mate. The
fairytale wedding is your gateway into adult life. But in my experience, this
idea about marriage as the end of the road is pretty misguided and means
couples are missing out on a lot of the fun.”
I’d like to insert our own story here. Neither my husband nor
I had graduated college when we got married. I graduated two months after we
got married and he a little bit later. We had no idea what career path either
of us would take, where we would live, and I don’t mean place I mean even state!
We didn’t have a 5 year plan or even our own individual current plans. What we
did have was the strong desire to do it together. What strongly influenced us
to get married was the recognition that we would rather be married and struggle
through any sort of trial including moves, job searches, potential financial
difficulty than remain single and have it all figured it out. Getting married
has been the greatest blessing of my life, followed closely behind by the birth
of our daughter.
Shaw’s article goes on, “Marriage wasn’t something we did
after we’d grown up—it was how we have grown up and grown together. We’ve
endured the hardships of typical millennials: job searches, job losses, family
deaths, family conflict, financial fears, and career concerns. The stability,
companionship, and intimacy of marriage enabled us to overcome our challenges
and develop as individuals and a couple. We learned how to be strong for one
another, to comfort, to counsel, and to share our joys and not just our
problems. For every troubling, vexing, perplexing question or decision, we
offered each other advice, talked through the argument, and steered each other
through the periods of self-doubt.. His good judgment makes it easy to share my
burdens with him—and my good fortunes, too. Because your spouse knows the
extent of your troubles, your successes become that much more meaningful. Being
married young has afforded us unmatched companionship and support in any
circumstance.
Sometimes people delay marriage because they are searching
for the perfect soul mate. But that view has it backward. Your spouse becomes
your soul mate after you've made those vows to each other in front of God and
the people who matter to you. You don’t marry someone because he’s your soul
mate; he becomes your soul mate because you married him.”
I’d like to reference Genesis 2:24 which reads,“Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.” I love the imagery of spouses becoming united,
leaving the life they knew to create a new life together.
God also thinks highly of marriage in that the first two
people he placed on earth were a couple, Adam and Eve. The Lord did not see it
fit to leave Adam without a companion so he provided him a wife, Eve. I’ve
always considered how Eve was created out of Adam’s rib. The rib comes from
Adam’s side, not his front or back. This is a symbol that neither spouse is
greater than the other, that they walk side by side in unity.
N. Eldon Tanner said,
“It is important for us to understand, as we can learn from the scriptures,
that God is eternal, that his creations are eternal, and that his truths are
eternal. Therefore, when he gave Eve to Adam in marriage, that union would be
eternal. Marriage as ordained of God and performed in his holy temples is
eternal—not just until death.” It is hard to differentiate between a celestial
family and an eternal family. A celestial family is one that is striving, on
earth, to maintain that eternal bond in the next life.
Matthew 16: 19 reads, “I will give unto thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven.” I am so thankful that the Lord
has promised to reward our efforts in this life. Inasmuch as we strive for a
celestial family on earth we will be blessed in the eternities to share forever
with our families.
Elder Tanner continues, “Marriage performed by his authority
in his holy temples, is eternal, and couples so united are sealed for time and
all eternity, and their children are born in the covenant of the everlasting
gospel. They will be an eternal family according to their faithfulness.” According
to their faithfulness. This blessing is not a gimme. We have the potential
to remain as a family for the eternities if
we are faithful. Marriage is just the beginning of a long road ahead. It’s not
something to check off the list! Having
an eternal family includes daily efforts to
return, together, to His presence.
I know that through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and through
keeping the commandments of God and the covenants we make with him, we can each
make our home a heaven on earth while we prepare ourselves and our children to
return to our Heavenly Father. I have a strong testimony of the temple and of
the ordinances preformed there. I am thankful for my membership in this church,
for the knowledge of the gospel and especially for my Savior Jesus Christ. I am
thankful to have a worthy priesthood holder who presides over our small family
and cares for us. I feel very blessed to be sealed in the temple to my husband
and daughter and am excited at the opportunity to live with them forever.
