Covenant Marriages

In order to have a covenant marriage, I think that it is important to keep God and the gospel, the center of your marriage. Doing this includes many different things. It is important to regularly attend the temple as a couple. Attending the temple together helps you remember your covenants and to remember what the focus of life is. It is also so important to pray together, and read scriptures together. This helps a couple to come closer together through gaining greater understandings of the gospel. It also helps them to grow their testimonies together. It is crucial to put God first in your marriage. If you aren’t putting God as the focus, you aren’t living a covenant marriage.

Along with living having a gospel-centered relationship, it is so important for spouses to find good in each other and to praise each other. In his Ensign article titled “Covenant Marriage,” Elder Bruce C. Hafen talks about three wolves that test and threaten marriages. The first wolf is natural adversity. The second wolf is their own imperfections, and the third wolf is excessive individualism. I think that the second wolf is detrimental in today’s society. It is so easy to get down on yourself because you “aren’t enough.” Having a spouse that won’t ride the negative parade that is in your head, is so important. As most people do, I have had self-conscious issues. I have felt that I wasn’t pretty enough, or that I wasn’t good enough. I’ve felt like I could’ve done so much better at something. Although some of our doubts might be true sometimes, it doesn’t help to have someone negatively agree with you. My husband is SO good to me. When I am feeling down because I am feeling like I’m not enough, he tells me why he loves me so much and why I am enough in his eyes. He helps me understand that I shouldn’t be self-conscious. It is important to recognize your imperfections and do your best to improve, but don’t let them get in the way of your marriage.

 I feel like this wolf about imperfections is so important because it can control the other ones. Natural adversity is another hard thing to deal with, but if you don’t have confidence in yourself and if you don’t love yourself, you are going to have a hard time dealing with other trials that are out of your control (such as a family member dying, a miscarriage, etc.). I think that the second wolf also controls the third one about excessive individualism because it helps you understand more your relationship with yourself, your spouse, and those around you.

David A. Bednar says, “The man completes and perfects the woman and the woman completes and perfects the man as they learn from and mutually strengthen and bless each other.” Men and women can complete and perfect each other in so many ways, whether that is spiritually or emotionally. In marriages, it is important to support each other and be positive to each other. It is important to put God first in your marriages ALWAYS and to help keep each other on track.

This is my husband and I on our wedding day. We made covenants with God that day that allowed us to be sealed for time and all eternity!