Covenant Marriage Takes Work!

I throughly enjoyed the talk given by Elder Bruce C. Hafen entitled “Covenant Marriage” in this article Elder Hafen discusses the difference between a Contract Marriage and a Covenant Marriage. I enjoyed the anecdote he tells about a newly married bride because in some ways it reminds me of myself as a young bride deeply in love and ready to live “happily ever after. Elder Hafen says “A bride sighed blissfully on her wedding day, “Mom, I’m at the end of all my troubles!” “Yes,” replied her mother, “but at which end?” I remember feeling much this same way, I had made it to the temple and was being sealed to my sweetheart, what could possible cause us anything but pure bliss? I learned quickly that marriage is work! 

 When troubles come, the parties to a contractual marriage seek happiness by looking to find themselves and sometimes even walking away.They marry to obtain benefits and will stay only as long as they’re receiving what they bargained for. However when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. When we understand that we are bound together by covenants this changes how we react to conflict and trials. “Contract companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100 percent”  When we are sealed for time and all eternity to our husband or wife we have entered into a sacred ordinance and covenant with God. It is an essential ordinance to obtain the highest degree of glory. It is the crowing ordinance, that makes us eligible, if we honor and fulfill out responsibilities, to become like our Heavenly parents. In very simple terms “It’s a big deal.”

 Actually marriage should always be a ‘big deal’ but unfortunately so much of the world doesn’t seem to see it in the same way. Most marriages tend to be contract based. You enter into an agreement with each other that you will and will not do certain things. You promised to stick it out when times get tough, but so many times when the tough times come, the marriage or contract crumbles. As I think about this and the experiences  my husband and I have faced in nearly 25 years of marriage  I know that building a covenant marriage takes work, never-ending work. We have to continue to strengthen that bond, we have to constantly try harder to see where we can offer help and support, we have to learn to compromise and to work things out. Life brings so many changes and curve balls and we have to be ready and willing to work together during all of these ups and downs. However by continuing to stick it out no matter what life throws at us helps us to become even more committed to the relationship and then more committed to each other. As time goes on, we truly become one. 

Elder Bednar offers some very good counsel when he listed one of the basic principles to Eternal marriage in his talk "Marriage is Essential to His Eternal Plan"“The natures of male and female spirits complete and perfect each other, and therefore men and women are intended to progress together toward exaltation.” This teaches me that we can’t do it alone, we cannot be perfect without each other and without the help of the Savior. “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” 1 Corinthians 11:11. So we have to learn to work together, in all aspects of marriage. We have to be connected, the the Lord has to be involved. It is a three way covenant. When we look at marriage in this way we can whether almost any storm life will bring. “ I  [we] can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Philippians 4:13. I want to do all I can to honor my covenant marriage and make it last into eternity. 

August 17, 1991