W06: Cherishing Your Spouse

In Mosiah 3:19 it says, “the natural man is an enemy to God, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him.” In our marriages we need to recognize that we have to put off the natural man in order to cherish our spouse. We cannot make that choice and hope it sticks for the rest of our lives. Each day is a new day and waking up with that choice to love and cherish our spouse is something we are always faced with. When we focus on our spouse and show appreciation for them, it will become a part of who we are together.

We are not left on this earth to figure it out on our own. We have been given the tools on how to love during even the hardest of times. We can look at Adam and Eve and the situation they were in. They did not turn their back on the Lord. They prayed and asked for help while going through trials and pain. Adam and Eve worked together and humbly prayed for direction. Just like them, we need to find ways to humble ourselves. There have been sometimes in our marriage where a career path for my husband was drastically changed. Each time my husband was devastated. During those times we were both humbled beyond what I would ever hope for. At one point my husband felt like his life of happiness was over. This gave us both the opportunity to use prayer and the help of our Bishop to look towards things that would make us happy again. The decisions didn’t affect me because it wasn’t my job, but it put me in the position to be the one person, besides God, to be there for my husband.

It’s no secret that marriages will have bumps along the way. It’s how we handle those bumps that will have a lasting mark on our marriage. We have help, we have the Holy Ghost to lead and guide us. We need to be willing to listen. In order to listen we need to be humble and turn ourselves over to God. During a recent trial at work, my husband feared his job would be lost and we would lose everything. I did express to him that even if his job was lost, we could find a way together to fix things. I have always felt that it was important for me to share my testimony with him during trials where his faith was lacking. Even though we all need to gain our own testimony, sometimes the example of our spouses testimony is helpful.