In and Out of Love

Imagine that as you sit silently enjoying your evening that a phone call comes. On the other end of the line is the voice of one of your closest and most beloved friends. After a bit of small talk your friend tells you that he just needs to talk to you about a struggle in his marriage. He then relates a story about how not long ago his spouse approached him only to tell him that she no longer loves him and believes that the last two years of marriage has been a mistake, and although they have a one year old child, she says she never has loved you. Then the question under a choked up voice, Matt, what do I do?

As we spent the next twenty minutes discussing the keys to a happy marriage I was taken away to a somber place of deep thought. As I related to him my belief that if both husband and wife and living the Gospel and making an effort to live up to the covenant made over the alter that things will work out I couldn't help but wonder how things could ever get so far out of whack. No marriage is perfect, and it takes the bumps and bruises on the journey to teach us those life lessons that make us compatible by sharing events of deep emotion and trial and working together to overcome the same.

How grateful I am for my sweetheart, as I watch her struggle physically and emotionally to bring our first child into the world, I find opportunities to question my own strength but never my eternal love for her. A covenant is a solemn commitment and promise made between two or more people, and requires those involved to be what was promised.

As I still ponder upon those words that can help and console my friend, I find strength in knowing that there is no such thing as falling out of love, or shying away from the trials of marriage. As we allow ourselves to be molded by the hands of a loving and eternal Father, we become ever so slowly one capable of standing in His presence and becoming what we were sent here to become.