Family

"Just as Jesus used a child in His mortal ministry as an example for the people of the pure love they must and could have to be like Him, He has offered us the family as an example of an ideal setting in which we can learn how to love as He loves. That is because the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows we experience are in family relationships. The joys come from putting the welfare of others above our own. That is what love is."

-President Henry B. Eyring

I really loved this quote that was included in my class material this week and it made me think about why it is so important that we have family construction in place. There has been a lot of research done about families, what the best construct of a family is, how to have the most happiness in your family, what negative things impact families, but it would be much more difficult to pin down from a simple research experiment why families are important. What is interesting though is how much time and money and effort is put into making sure everyone has a loving and a (more or less) healthy family, for example, Child Protective Services, adoption agencies, one might even argue on a more controversial note that abortions in some situations are to prevent children coming into a family that isn’t ready to take care of them. Studies have also shown that cohabitation is not the route to go and that there is more relational happiness and fulfillment for long term relationships in the more traditional route of marriage. Why is this?

This week in class we talked about sexual intimacy in marriage and fidelity following. A well-revered document called The Family: A Proclamation to the World states that “We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God’s eternal plan”. While sexual intimacy is important in a relationship, we understand from this quote that it is most beneficial when used properly within God’s defined way. I love this quote especially in connection with the quote that was mentioned earlier that we are meant to experience great joy within our family relationships. The biggest difference between cohabitation and sexual relations, and marriage and sexual relations, it that after you are married you are a family. Sex is not just about sensations and experiences, but it’s about bonding and loving which is meant to be for forever. I really loved learning about the technicalities of the hormones in the male and female bodies in regard to sex. It is interesting to me how sex initiates a bonding through chemicals automatically which further supports what I have just said about its purpose.

In addition to this, fidelity after marriage is very much connected because that bonding is meant to last forever. To me, families are eternal, and they are meant to be that way. While there are some situations such as abuse where it is clear for the safety and wellbeing of a spouse or children that one must leave, I do believe that many problems can be solved with time and love. While now with how our society is, it is easy to be independent or think for one reason or another that having a family is not the best way to go. But in the end families bring great joy, and with them, we can accomplish way more together than we could on our own.

We have been going on a lot of adventures lately!