I have been thinking a lot lately about President David O. McKay's quote that hung on the wall above our door frame at home for as long as I can remember: "No other success can compensate for failure in the home."
I don't think I can actually write all of the things that have been on my mind regarding this quote. But I feel like I need to try because it has been weighing so heavily on my heart in the last month.
One of the things that has significantly impacted the direction of my thoughts is the many friends I have who have gotten a divorce in the last few years; some have even been apart now longer than they were married. The reasons are all valid in their minds. I have heard people say, "It's complicated." "We just fell out of love." "I just couldn't stand the thought of being with him/her for another day, let alone forever." "He/she really had it coming for a long time." "Our interests and life goals just weren't heading the same direction any more. It was better to make a break and each do what we really want than to hold each other back and watch our love die anyway." "I don't know what happened - I didn't even see it coming. One day he/she just came home and said it was over, he/she wanted out. What else could I do?" "The bishop said that we needed to nurture our love and make it grow again; but I told him that you had to have a seed to make a plant grow and you had to have a seed to make love grow, and we just didn't have a seed." And at the core of each of these comments has GENERALLY (though not always) been the unexpressed attitude of "it isn't my fault; I'm the innocent victim and now I have to live with the consequences."
Let me first say that I am married to a man who is divorced, so I know that there are situations when divorce is essential for exaltation to be possible. And even though I can truly say that the greatest pains of Dave's first marriage and the greatest reasons for his getting a divorce were NOT his fault, he has never said that he was blameless. Even so, after years of unhappiness and working and working and working at it to make it work and have a Celestial Marriage, he finally called it quits after a chain of events that included his spouse's excommunication, infidelity, and, finally, their divorce. There are times when there is no other option, particularly in the case of infidelity in marriage. I can think of nothing, next to suicide itself, that is more selfish and harmful than infidelity - and nothing more EASY to engage in if you go looking for it, let your thoughts entertain it, allow yourself to be flattered by the idea of it, etc. I must also add that infidelity includes the thoughts and intents of the heart; pornography is one of the most destructively subtle, though indirect, forms of infidelity out there. Talk to the spouse of one who is married to someone addicted to pornography if you disagree with me on that. There is more to infidelity than the momentary act of actual sexual intercourse.
That moves me to my other thoughts. I look at the reasons I have heard for many years from the people who got divorced, and I am appalled that so many good people would let Satan take from them the most important thing they could ever work for or achieve: Eternal Life and Exaltation. I truly feel that God will approach the breaking of covenants at the final judgment as strictly as he did in the Old Testament when they placed the broken pieces of animals on the altar of sacrifice as a symbol of what would happen to
them if they were to break their covenants with God. I fear that we sometimes take these things WAY too lightly, living in and partaking of popular ideas/notions that promote self-centered and often casual thinking about what you want and how you are going to get it NOW instead of looking at the seeds and plants in our lives, identifying the moments when they were planted and allowed to grow or - conversely - when they started to wither and were eventually pulled out and cast aside.
It is so easy to be sidetracked by school, by work, by friends, by media, by exercise, by bills and mortgages and debt, by individual hobbies and interests, by video games and movies and tv shows, by children, by activities, even by callings and service at times. It is SO. EASY. It is so easy to get together with friends and harp on or sarcastically laugh about the faults and weaknesses of your spouse, the things they do that drive you nuts, the selfishness, the thoughtlessness, the ignorance, the stupidity, the lack of time and effort, the oversight. It is SO. EASY. It is so easy to get casual in weekly family home evenings, using the time to play a game or watch a movie -- week after week after week -- while never looking at the hard things and working to improve in ways that will help you move together towards Eternal Life. It is SO. EASY. It is so easy to do the same for weekly date nights, watching a movie or television show EVERY week, playing a board or card game EVERY week, maybe even alternating between the two, telling yourselves that there isn't any point in or ability to do anything else because you don't have any money, you have children, you are too busy or too tired to plan anything else, etc. It is SO. EASY.
It is so hard to make time each day to talk to your spouse, to play with your children, to let the dishes sit in the sink or the laundry remain unfolded in the basket and spend time reconnecting as individuals, couples, and a FAMILY. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to put yourself in your spouse's shoes each day and see the work and exhaustion involved in each others daily grind and turn your thoughts to how you can ease your spouse's burden instead of all the ways your spouse doesn't seem to be easing YOURS. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to look at the imperfections in yourself and spend time talking about and focusing on how to improve those to make you a better person, friend, spouse, parent, neighbor, missionary, disciple and look to your spouse for help and assistance in becoming better. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to not focus on the imperfections of your spouse and allow them to turn from a chip to a canyon in your marriage and instead focus on nurturing in yourself and others feelings of respect, love, fondness, and admiration for your spouse. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to weekly evaluate where you are as a family, what your weaknesses are, what potential storms you should be preparing for before they come or house fires you should be putting out before they burn down the neighborhood and then FOCUS on and PREPARE for those things as a FAMILY in weekly Family Home Evenings (particularly when your children are young and attention spans are short). It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to plan and thoughtfully carry out a date night that allows you to both come together, talk together, learn together, laugh together, grow together. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to stay awake just a few minutes longer when the day is through to read your scriptures and pray together as a couple. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard after wrestling to get through bedtime routines to wrestle a few moments more to get in prayer and scripture study with you resistant children. It is SO. HARD. It is so hard to face dishes, laundry, cleaning, picking up toys a hundred times, cleaning up messes a hundred times, finding distractions and engaging activities a hundred times, planning and preparing and creating healthy meals four or five times a day when you never get to sit down and enjoy just one by yourself or even sit as a family. It is SO. HARD. And it is so hard to feel empty inside, unfulfilled, unappreciated, and essentially invisible and turn down a much-desired job or hobby or activity for the good of your children and home and family. It is SO. HARD.
"And it came to pass that when Jesus had ended these sayings he said unto his disciples: Enter ye in at the strait
gate; for strait is the gate, and narrow [HARD] is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it; but wide is the gate, and broad [EASY] the way which leads to death, and many there be that travel therein, until the night cometh." 3 Nephi 27:33
That moves me to my next thought: How am I going to make sure that this doesn't become me? How am I going to make sure that the night never comes to settle on my soul, in my marriage, or in my home?
Short and simple: I am going to do HARD things in the STRENGTH OF THE LORD. I am going to remember who I am, that I am a daughter of God, surrounded by imperfect but immortal individuals, able to access the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ for those things that I CAN help and those things that others do to ME that I cannot help. I am going to put first things first and not allow them to get lost in the WORLD, however tempting and/or taunting they may be. I am going to do HARD things until the hard path becomes easy and the EASY path disappears. I am going to do HARD things, every day, in the STRENGTH OF THE LORD. I am going to KEEP the SACRED covenants I made with God and my spouse, covenants that embrace my children, EVERY DAY.
Salvation IS an individual matter. Exaltation IS a family matter. Nothing else matters more for the individual. And nothing else matters more for the family. NOTHING.
