Week 12

I have never had to go through the pain of having my parents divorce. There have been times when I can remember wishing that they would. But when I step back and look at the big picture I realize that a lot of the fights I thought were a big deal were actually really little and easy to work through. Studies show that the majority of couples who are unhappy in the marriage can work through this difficult time within five years (Lauer & Lauer, Chapter 14).

I am not married yet and I am no expert on marriage. One thing that I have learned from watching my parents, however, is that love isn't so much a feeling as a choice. I like to think of it as when two people keep choosing each other every single day. On the worst days as well as the best, they choose each other. That is the meaning of commitment to me, personally.
Divorce can be awful for all involved partly because divorce isn't just one big split, it is a bunch of smaller ones all together. It is an emotional, legal, economical, co-parental, community, and psychic divorce.

Emotional divorce is the loss of trust, affection, and respect for each other. Instead of giving each other support, each spouse finds ways to hurt each other. Legal divorce is when the marriage is officially ended by the court. Each person is free of the obligations of marriage. Economical divorce is a settlement of the property. This can cause rife over who gets what and neither partner ever feels fully satisfied. Co-parental divorce is when decisions about who has custody of the children have to be made. This can be difficult for the children because their routines and lifestyles are changed dramatically to accommodate each parent. It is especially detrimental if the parents use the children as weapons against each other. Community divorce is when the community or shared friends of the couple feel forced to take sides. Often one of the partners will choose to move to a new community because of this. And last, psychic divorce is the central separation that happens when each person has to accept that they are now single and independent individual and has to learn to feel whole again and heal (Lauer & Lauer, Chapter 14).

As you can see, divorce is extremely difficult for each partner and all involved. Coming from a family where my parents are still married and happy, I have never had to feel this strife in my own life and I am so incredibly grateful for that. There is not a single marriage out there that has never dealt with any problems of difficulties. What it all comes down to is how each person decides to react to the adversity.

In the Gospel Topics on the church website it says, "When men and women marry, they make solemn covenants with each other and with God. Every effort should be made to keep these covenants and preserve marriage. When divorce occurs, individuals have the obligation to forgive rather than to condemn, to lift and to help."

I love this quote. Marriage is a beautiful thing and it should be fought for at all costs. Sometimes in cases of abuse or neglect, divorce is healthier for those involved. In others, all it takes is both people making the decision to choose the other and to work through the problems. Marriage can be beautiful and eternal if both people make the choice to work for it. I encourage anyone who is struggling with this currently to try to make any effort they can to strive for a healthy marriage.

Week 11

I very much enjoyed one of the class readings assigned for this week. It is titled, "We Believe in the Ministering of Angels" by Larry Barkdull and it can be found in the Meridian Magazine. There were two messages that I took from this article. The first is that no wayward child is too far gone to come back into the fold. The second thing I took from the article is that even when we feel utterly lost and alone, we NEVER are. Even though we cannot see them, the Lord will send us angels to comfort and protect us at our weakest moments.

I had an experience just a short time ago when I came to understand this for myself. I have had my fair share of trials in my life. However, I have always been fairly resilient and I have never had a trial that I did not think I could overcome-- until recently. About a month ago I faced a trial that completely devastated me. It was by far the lowest I had ever felt in my whole life, and this was worsened by the fact that I hadn't felt close to the Lord in quite a while. I still had a testimony, but I felt as if the Lord had left me and I hadn't felt the Spirit in what felt like ages. The feelings I felt were a whole new level than I had ever had to work through before and I had no idea how to understand them. I decided it was time for me to go back to my parent's home for the weekend to try and restore the sense of peace that I had lost. While I was there I had a moment when I felt as if I could actually FEEL someone in the room comforting me, despite the fact that I was all alone in the house. I don't know whether or not there actually was an angel with me, but I didn't feel all alone anymore. I knew my Heavenly Father loved me, He cherished my heart, and He had never left me. I went home after that weekend and it literally felt like I was a whole new person. Before I had left, I didn't think I would ever be alright again...but when I came back it was as if the Lord had literally taken my pain away from me.

I know without a doubt that the Lord sends angels to comfort and watch over us. When someone close to us strays from the path and we worry for them, we just need to remember that the Lord desires for all of His children to come back to Him. These particular words from the article stuck out to me: "We must not despair. In working with our wayward children, God will assemble all the powers of heaven and earth to achieve His glorious work. Whether our children have strayed from the path of truth, become lost by following a forbidden path, or consciously rebelled and run away to a far country, their Heavenly Father can find and rescue them. Even when they are so broken that they are no longer recognizable, He will patiently put them back together until they can bring forth good fruit. No matter their choices and situations, God loves them and is constantly working to save and redeem them. And so are their family and friends who have gone on before. We are never alone in the work of redemption."

Sometimes when we have a wayward loved one, the best thing we can do for them is just to love them. The Lord will make up for the part we lack. No one is beyond the Lord's help.