How Important is Family?

Guys! Marriage is so fun. You get to torture one person for the rest of forever and they can’t leave. Its great! I made salmon burgers yesterday and my wonderful husband actually ate them even though he hates fish. Why? Because he loves me. Being totally serious now, marriage is a lot of work and I don’t think it comes easy to anyone. Every relationship will have ups and downs and you just need to ride them out together. If I’m being completely honest that used to absolutely terrify me.  I used to be one of those people that said they would never get married. I was never against the idea of marriage, but it always scared me. I was terrified that I would become committed to this wonderful person and make plans to live happily ever after then one day it would just all end. He would wake up one morning and just wonder why he had ever married me in the first place. Now I realize that this was just one of Satan’s many tactics to destroy God’s plan for marriage and family and honestly it is concerning how well it works.

Families are being attacked from every angle these days. Within the LDS church it is common to get married young, especially for those of us attending BYU Idaho. But even within the church we are seeing couples postpone having children more and more. Why is this? Sometimes it is because it is the Lord’s plan that that family not be blessed with children yet, but more often than not it is due to people with hearts in the right place but using their heads too much. They want children, but they want to be financially stable before greeting those waiting souls. Another thing that stops couples is the fear that they will not be good enough parents. My husband and I have struggled with both of these recently. We are excited to become parents but had decided to wait until after we both have our bachelor’s degrees and are a little more financially stable. We had it all figured out. Then we actually prayed about it and got a very different answer. Once we opened our hearts instead of just coming to a conclusion with our minds we were able to comprehend the Lord’s way, and the Lord will always find a way for his work to be accomplished.

Heavenly Father wants to send as many of his precious souls as he can to good and righteous homes so even before we have children we need to prepare our homes to be like that. One way to do that is by preparing ourselves. Margaret D. Nadauld said, “The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity.” (The Joy of Womanhood- Margaret D. Nadauld) Think of your mother and which of those attributes she possesses. Even those of you who are single can begin building those qualities within yourselves,

One thing we hear from the church on a regular basis is that we need to bring as many children into righteous families as we can support. Sometimes as members I believe we mistake this for having a large number of children (like six or more). That is untrue. The prophets will never tell us how many children to have or when to begin having them, they will simply encourage us to make the decision prayerfully and never ignore what the Lord prompts you to do regarding children. Still sometimes we feel such a pressure to raise large families that it becomes a source of major anxiety. When I was about sixteen I had some major health problems. Because of these I almost had to get a hysterectomy in order to stay alive. I struggled because I felt like I had failed in what I was sent here to do, bear and rear children. I knew adoption was an option but its expensive and I didn’t believe I could help as many children that way. There is no one right way of having or raising a family. All that matters is that we rely on the Lord first then fulfill his plan.

I know that family is important. They can provide a great source of support. The world has a trend against families today and it is frightening. These are definitely signs of the last days. This being said do not let that discourage you. The last days are coming, but that does not make it any less important that we stand up for what we believe in and support God’s views on families. Please feel free to add your thoughts on these topics to open the discussion on this even further.