To Love

In 2005 one of my cousins and his wife adopted a baby boy. That summer they went to the Temple as a family and were sealed for time and all eternity. Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone performed the sealing. Although my cousin and his wife had been married for over 10 years he wanted to take the opportunity to share some thoughts about marriage and how to love. I wrote down most of what he said in my journal. I love going back reading through my journal. Some of the entries are so funny. Sometimes I can be a crazy person. But anyway I read the other night about the things Elder Featherstone had said about love and I wanted to share them so here they are making their debut on my blog. He said....

Men should feel such a profound love for their wives that when they walk into a room and see their wife sleeping they get emotional just by looking at her and watching her sleep. Love is when a romantic song comes on the radio and you have the urge to dance with your wife around the Kitchen. Romance is when you are sitting next to your wife at church and you have your arm around her and you can't seem to get her close enough to you. There will be times or days in your marriage when your wife will need to talk. She will need her husband to listen. She will need him to listen well and hard. He doesn't need to have a speech or anything prepared to say he just needs to listen. He needs to listen like he's never listened before. And when she is done, he needs to hold her and hold her until everything in her world is okay.

He went on to say...

Wives need to be supportive of their husbands. They need to thank him for being a good provider for their family. They need to be thanked for being a good father and a good husband. Husbands have an enormous responsibility to provide for a family. There are 6 billion of us on this earth and everyone is trying to make it and to be on the top. Your husband goes out in it everyday and slays dragons. The world is more competitive now then it ever has been. You need to be grateful and supportive of your husband's work.

For those of you that are married I hope you will love a little better and a little stronger. For those of us who aren't married I hope we can realize the joy and enormous responsibility that lies ahead.