life in a family

life in a family is hard. the further along i get into creating a family of my own the more i know this to be true. growing up i just assumed being in a family was what one did. that families just happened. it had not occured to me that people chose to be in families. and while it can be argued that we don't get to choose our family, i think with an eternal perspective this argument holds little weight. whether we chose our family before coming here or as adults (when choosing to marry) we are in our families for a purpose, even if it is a purpose "we know not." and so as an adult i've come to see that many, many people chose not to have a family of their own and chose not to be active in the family they grew up in. if family has brought you little else besides pain i can see why this might be. that thought makes my heart sad. cause everyone deserves to love and be loved. everyone deserves a good family. or at least a family that's trying to be good. many people choose not to have family because it is so much easier to make decisions without having to think of others. planning for yourself, preparing only for yourself, thinking, acting, sacrificing only for yourself: easy peezy lemon squeezy. anyone that tells you otherwise probably hasn't lived in a family. or at least not a large enough one to make them know for sure what it means to have to think of others so consistently and so deeply.

but i digress. as usual. my point is that life with family is challenging. our family life is challenging. we have seven very different personalities. seven. that's a lot of needs, wants, attitudes, heartaches, sorrows, disappointments, dreams, hopes, and desires to address. they often collide and sometimes even crash terribly. when they do a lot of prayer, patience and forgiveness is required. a lot. more than we generally have to give, but not more than God has to give us to give to others. i absolutely know this to be true. in my heart this is a fact as sure as i know that i have gray hair at 36 or that the sky is blue out my window. fact. truth.

and so today i was reminded of a time when devan and i were struggling with each other. couldn't seem to figure each other's needs out well at all. it was getting worse and worse and we were both praying a lot about it, but it wasn't getting easier to understand each other. and then one day as we were driving out of our neighborhood in phoenix -- at this time we had chas and cole and i might have been pregnant with avery -- devan started feeling very upset. so upset, in fact, that he asked me to pull over and let him get out of the car. so i did. he started walking back to the house and i just sat there in the car cause i didn't know what to do. after a minute i turned to chas and explained to him that dad was struggling and needed our prayers and asked if he'd say a prayer with me. he agreed and we began praying together, asking God to help our dad feel the Spirit. help him feel loved. we asked him to soften devan's heart. when we finished praying i turned back around and looked out the rear view mirror. i watched devan stop walking away, pause for a moment, then turn around and walk back to the car.

he told me later on that he knew we had been praying for him because he felt a very distinct feeling come over him, encouraging him back to his family. i believe it was the Spirit we had been asking God to give him.

we saw God that day.

i don't have enough fingers to count the number of times God has brought devan and me back together again. softening our heart to each other. that's the direct result of a covenant marriage. a temple marriage. at this point in the world's history i don't know if it is possible to have a successful marriage without one. it's hard enough to have one with that sacred covenant. satan works viciously hard on families. the marriage covenant is a protection against the destroyer because it is what gives us literal access to the powers of heaven, what allows us to call down God's power on behalf of our families. to require God to save us when we cannot save ourselves. thank God for my temple covenants and my sacred temple marriage.