She who means so much

The Mother of our Children is the most important person in my life. I look back and remember some of the thoughts and the reason that she has become so important in my life and I recognize just how lucky I am.

Looking at some of the best things that happen in life it in some ways is a surprise that when you really think about them luck seems to be a big part. By luck I don’t mean to separate effort or correct choice but it gets down at times to having made a right decision that you really didn’t understand how very very right the decision was.

Having been married 40 + years it is just a fact of life that we have seen a lot of people who have not stayed married and where things didn’t work. Our Bishop expressed privately his sadness with the reality that some of those he works with to help council just don’t like each other. For two married people to not like each other is a tragedy.

Our church has suggested priority in "whom" we love. The suggestion is to love the Lord first, our spouse second, our children third and then the other priorities like "go to work". How powerful this order of priority is.

Before I say much more about this I will just make a comment on something else that really bothers me. In our church we have articles of faith that define what we believe.

#11. We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God
according to the dictates of our own conscience,
and allow all men the same privilege,
let them worship how, where, or what they may

I would consider myself an intellectual. Hate to just say it but after all that I have read and studied and with the re reading and re looking that I have done I would say that is just me. I would also declare that I believe in a Father and a Son and a Holy Ghost and see the Father as someone who thinks of others and me as children. Likewise I would like to be with the Father and become more like him. It just leaves me speechless to find that this simple declaration is enough to be branded a non-Christian and one who has offended others. I often read of those who feel that my church is not intellectual and that we are wrong about whom God is and that we offend by hoping to be more like him. Even so the higher we aspire the higher we may go. What we want is often what we seek after. Our secret desires turn out to define our actions.

What we have faith in defines all of our actions. Faith is the substance of those things that we don’t see but its existence is the principle of action that defines what we do and for that matter what is. Socrates reflects Christs teachings on this subject in his belief that virtue is knowledge and that he who does, and chooses, the will of God, will through that choice know the doctrine.

So for someone to "love the Lord above all others", this choice would in effect define their actions and thoughts and deeds. Loving the Lord first would set in proper priority where self should be. (Somewhere down the road from 3rd). The Lord, then our spouse, and then our children would be the priority. If you love the Lord first then that would define who you would treat your spouse. (The way the Lord would want you too)

So I go back to luck. I don’t know where I learned this lesson as I was going up. Maybe you feel it from what makes ones own marriage tick? Anyway when I was 20 I don’t recall someone giving me a formula that would make certain that 40+ years later I would be married to the same woman and that I would love her far more than even then.

On the other hand the thing that influenced me most in my own choice of companion and spouse was simply that “she loved the Lord”. O how fortunate I was. How thankful I am. The Lord is first and he is indeed all that matters. She is all that matters. The logic of this is so compelling. It is healing. It is a standard for success.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

Thomas Jefferson

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest

Edward Gibbon

All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.

Edward Gibbon