My name is Lillith Bear and Brother Flade asked me to speak
on Strengthening Our Marriages. Brother
Flade is my home teacher, as well as Brother Wadsworth and the problem with
having two members of the bishopric home teach you is, it puts you on their
radar. Before I moved into this ward, I
hadn’t talked in Sacrament for a solid 13 years and this will be my third time
speaking in this ward. They are really
messing with my percentages.
I have to say, I was a little intimidate by the subject
matter of my talk. It didn’t help that
every time I told my friends and family what I was speaking about, they
laughed. I’m not sure why. Anyway, most of the speeches I looked up on
strengthening marriages addressed things like praying together as a couple,
reading scripture together, etc. My
husband has never been active in the church and as solid as this advice it, it
doesn’t really help me too much and since I feel like I was asked to speak for
a reason, I wanted to find advice and answers that would apply to everyone, no
matter the relationship.
When it comes to matters of love, I have an interesting
history.
I have been a Rosaline-Who’s that you ask. She’s the girl Romeo was waxing on about, until
he saw Juliet and forgot all about her.
I have been an Eponine-A hopeless romantic that fell in love
with a guy that was just not that in to her.
I wore unrequited love for years, the way most girls wear make-up, every day and
all over my face.
I have been a Jo-A best friend, a good buddy, a confidante
that you could spend countless, effortless hours with, but then I had to stand
by and watch them all marry their Amy’s.
Yes, high-maintenance, fussy, date-demanding Amys. I didn’t get it.
I loved in so many imperfect ways. I made vast improvements to my track record,
when I fell in love and married Robert Bear, but I didn’t get everything
right. We are far from perfect and our
marriage has a lot of room for improvement and that is okay, because as Elder
Holland stated….
Christ is the only
one who got it all right, did it all perfectly, loved the way we are all to try
to love. But even though we fall short, that divine standard is there for us.
It is a goal toward which we are to keep reaching, keep striving—and,
certainly, a goal to keep appreciating.
So how does Christ love and how can it help us improve our
marriage?
In his BYU address, Elder Holland turned to the scriptures
to teach us how Christ loved. We have
all heard that Charity is defined as the pure love of Christ. Moroni 7:45 says…
Charity suffereth long, and is kind- Suffering is defined as
undergoing pain, distress, or hardship and long suffering is defined as being
patient during hardships. The Love that Christ models for us comes hand in hand
with suffering and apparently not for a short amount of time either and as a
kicker, we’re expected to be kind throughout it. We’re not supposed to scream and shout,
threaten, abandon, call names and blame.
We are supposed to suffer, for as long as it takes and be kind.
I read an article recently titled…
THE MOST OVERLOOKED CHARACTERISTIC OF WHO YOU WANT TO MARRY
by Kevin Thompson and he stated that you want to marry someone who suffers
well. I definitely fall into the
category of people that did not have suffering well on my list of what I was
looking for in a spouse. He says suffering
is part of the human experience, and when life falls apart, you want someone
you can run to, not someone you want to run from.
- You
want someone who believes in you.
- You
want someone who instills faith, not causes doubt.
- You
want someone who hopes no matter the circumstances.
In the Bible, Job’s wife responded to his suffering by
saying, “Curse God and die.”
Had he not suffered enough?
Was life not difficult enough?
Enduring hardship was enough, yet Job was also forced to
rebuke his wife during his time of struggle.
Life is hard enough; there is no need to make it harder.
Choosing a spouse who does not suffer well makes life
harder.
It makes every grief stronger.
It makes every sorrow more painful.
It makes every hurt deeper.
Yet,
when our spouse knows how to suffer,
when they have don’t live in denial, but confront the
sorrows of life,
when they don’t live in despair but know how to laugh and
cry at the same time,
when they offer support and hope in all of life’s
challenges,
when they can see the big picture of life,
then,
every grief is wedded to hope
every sorrow is matched with love
and every hurt is paired with healing.
So here’s the deal…. Don’t be Job’s wife. (That includes you fellas out there.) If you recognize some of those negative
qualities in yourself, realize they don’t serve you and they definitely don’t
serve your loved ones. I saw a poster on
Facebook that said, Negative people have a problem for every solution. Don’t be that person. If this is you and it’s probably been most of
us at some point, desire to change and pray for help. I have a major pet peeve when people say,
that’s just me… I’m a pessimist, or I’m sarcastic or critical and I can’t
change. Of course you can change. Changing for the better is the whole purpose
of life.
We can change ourselves, but we can’t change other people. Ladies, you can’t make your husbands into Mr.
Darcys, or Edwards. There are a lot of
Edwards in literature, so I’m going to pretend like I’m not talking about
Twilight, but if you know me, you know the truth. So what to do if you are married to, or in a
relationship with a bad sufferer. I definitely don’t have all the answers to
this one, but some ideas I had are; Set a good example, be one yourself. Discuss how important the quality is in times
where you are not currently in a hardship.
Cuz ain’t nobody like to be lectured to in the middle of an
argument. Forgive a lot, pray
specifically for help in that area, read together in the scriptures and if they
aren’t religious, read other stories, or watch movies involving both good and
bad examples of this trait and discuss what that quality means to you. My little boy plays cops and robbers all the
time, but the other day, he was running around calling himself Nephi and
calling my husband Laman. He knows, even
from a young age, who the hero of the story is and who he wants to cast himself
as. We want to be heroes and develop the
characteristics of our heroes. Maybe
suffering well is a trait they haven’t really even thought about and just
discussing it will help bring it to the forefront of their minds. Also and this one is a little out of the box,
you can do family history work. Sister
Nelson just spoke in our stake and said if we need help, we can ask for
specific angels by name to help us, but many of them need their work done.
This struck a chord with me, because for the last year I
have had the impression many times I needed to do the work for Bear’s
grandparents. This is weird to me,
because I have never done temple work for family members, so it is not
something I think about a lot. I have
never met my husband’s grandparents and I have grandparents of my own whose
work is not complete. During Sister
Nelson’s talk, three things became abundantly clear to me; our dead, may have
died, but they are not dead. Bear’s
grandparents, Jackie and Noble are ready for their work to be done and finally,
they want to help us.
Before I move on, I think it is important to clarify that it
is not charity or kindness to endure any type of abuse or unrighteousness that
may be inflicted on us by others. Aileen
H. Clyde said, “God’s commandment that as we love him, we must respect
ourselves, suggests we must not accept disrespect from others. It is not
charity to let another repeatedly deny our divine nature and agency. It is not
charity to bow down in despair and helplessness. That kind of suffering should
be ended. If you are in that situation,
please seek help from the Bishop, or another trusted authority.
The second part of the scripture describing how Christ loves
in Moroni 7:45 says that true charity—real love—”is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity.” Think of how many arguments could be avoided,
how many hurt feelings could be spared, how many cold shoulders and silent
treatments could be ended, and, in a worst-case scenario, how many breakups and
divorces could be avoided if we were not so easily provoked and if we thought
no evil of one another.
Thankfully, I have never been a Desdemona. Just think of the pain and suffering that
could have been spared if Othello had not let Iago sway him to see evil, where
there was none. I know a murder/suicide
story is a harsh example of this principle, but in reality marriages die, relationships
are snuffed out and friendships perish every day, because we can so easily be
provoked.
Elder Holland says, “Temper tantrums are not cute even in
children; they are despicable in adults, especially adults who are supposed to
love each other. We are too easily provoked; we are too inclined to think that
our partner meant to hurt us—meant to do us evil, so to speak; and in defensive
or jealous response we too often rejoice when we see them make a mistake and
find them in a fault. Let’s show some discipline on this one. Act a little more
maturely. Bite your tongue if you have to. Proverbs 16:32 says, “He that is slow to anger is better than
the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city”. At least
one difference between a tolerable marriage and a great one may be that
willingness in the latter to allow some things to pass without comment, without
response.”
I read a great book about disciplining children called,
“Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey and one of her main
tenets she teaches is to apply positive intent to your children’s
misbehavior. It will immediately diffuse
an over-reaction on your part and allows you to teach your children, without
making them feel like they are bad, or evil, or stupid. A quick example is if one of your children hits
his brother or sister, because they don’t want to share a toy. Most of us would probably say, stop, hitting
is mean, why would you do that? Would
you want them to hit you? All of these put the child on the defensive and
communicate you are bad and mean. By
simply creating a positive intent for the situation, like I know you hit your
brother, because you didn’t want him to play with your favorite toy, you may not hit, hitting hurts, we teach them
without putting them down, or on the defensive.
We model empathy for them and let them understand we know where they are
coming from.
So, I have been trying to do this with everyone. Not for their sake, but for mine. I am a happier person when I don’t believe
that everyone is out to get me. It has
been pretty easy to do with strangers, if someone cuts me off in traffic, I
think, he must really need to get home to take his insulin. It’s been challenging, but doable for my
children. They’re just so dang cute… if
I take a second to breathe, I can usually see things from their perspective and
just why they thought the world was ending, but for some reason, the hardest
person to apply positive intent to is my husband. I am sure he leaves the slimy mess in the
sink strainer, just to gross me out and I completely forget to be thankful for
all the dishes he just washed. The good
thing is, I have an eternity to practice applying positive intent and so do
you.
Thirdly and lastly, Christ’s love “beareths all things,
believeths all things, hopeth all things, endureths all things” Elder Holland
says, Bear up and be strong. I’ve been
looking for a family motto that incorporates our last name and I might have to
use this. In Wyoming terms, since my
husband is from Wyoming… Cowboy up!
Marriage is not for wimps. No
relationship worth having is for wimps.
Everyone will let you down at some point. It is part of the plan. If someone could be everything for you, all
the time and never let you down, what incentive would you have to turn to Christ and as much as you
love your spouse, and your children, and
your siblings and you strive to be everything for them, you will let them down, or hurt them in some
way, because you’re not perfect either.
It’s okay. Bear up and be strong.
We can endure almost anything if we have someone at our side who truly loves
us, who is easing the burden and lightening the load.
I know this line is said by a woman, to a woman, but I think
we would all benefit in our marriages, guys included, by being Ruth’s. She was such a great example of loving
Christ’s way when she said, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from
following thee, for wither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest, I will
lodge, thy people shall be my people and thy God, my God, where thou diest, I
will die and there will be buried. The
Lord do so to me and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. How romantic is that, when those words are
applied to our marraiges.
We can all strengthen our marriages, no matter our
circumstance, by first-being long-suffering.
It takes patience, forgiveness and kindness to this, but it is within
our power. Second, not being easily
provoked. To do this, apply positive
intentions to the other person’s actions.
Set limits, hold them accountable for misdeeds, but try and see things
from their perspective. It does way more
to foster cooperation and a sense of unity and security, than seeing the worst
in our loved ones and lastly, by bearing up and enduring when it is required. Have hope and believe good things will come
and learn to be on each other’s team.
We’ve all heard of Team Jacob, or Team Edward, or Team CoCo… make it a
goal to be on Team Bear, or Team Oler, or Team Price, or whatever your last
name is.
To end, I wanted to quote Elder Holland one last time. He says, “I suppose no one is as handsome or
as beautiful as he or she wishes, or as brilliant in school or as witty in
speech or as wealthy as we would like, but in a world of varied talents and
fortunes that we can’t always command, I think that makes even more attractive
the qualities we can command—such qualities as thoughtfulness, patience, a kind
word, and true delight in the accomplishment of another. These cost us nothing,
and they can mean everything to the one who receives them.
I bare testimony that this is true and that our Savior loves
us and with practice we can love more like him each day. I say these things in the name of Jesus
Christ. Amen.