Communication and Marriage

Once a week. I have come to the conclusion that I can accomplish this goal. Some days I want to write fluidly and other days I find my pen frozen like a block of granite. If I don't, then my life is a waste. If I do and do it well, then my life is extended by the words on my paper. As it is I use neither a pen nor paper as it once was known. The age of electrons has taken that need over. For my self I need but a portable electronic library, and I will be happy. If I could write this log of my life while riding in intercity express trains or flying machines or submerged boats, then I would. I do not go always where the wind takes me. Often I find myself not too far from where I started. Sometimes I wonder if I don't take the road less traveled out of plain contentedness. Contentedness can be good for some things, but it should be avoided for others. And then there are even other things for which man should be neither content nor dissatisfied. You may ask what else is there? What sort of feeling is neither content nor dissatisfied? I'm not sure I can really answer that myself. It's not that it sounded good to put such a paradigm in my journal, it's more that I could imagine it and I know there is something there.

Perhaps one such thing might be a testimony of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. One should not be content that he thinks he knows everything, after all then if such could ever really occur, then what purpose does God have for his Prophet here on Earth? I know that the Prophet is called of God to serve and to lead His Church on Earth until He comes again. Therefore, if one is not content with his testimony, should he be dissatisfied with it? No, I don't think so. That doesn't apply either. One should be axiously engaged in learning the Gospel and dissatisfaction towards the Gospel might be the result of not understanding it by the Spirit. That of course is prerequisite to gaining a true testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ:

"Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way?
"And if it be by some other way it is not of God.
"And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way?
"If it be some other way it is not of God.
"Therefore, why is it that ye cannot understand and know, that he that receiveth the word by the Spirit of truth receiveth it as it is preached by the Spirit of truth?
"Wherefore, he that preacheth and he that receiveth, understand one another, and both are edified and rejoice together." (D&C 50:17-22)

In Priesthood yesterday we talked about Marriage. The talk that the lesson was based on was one from last General Conference called Nurturing Marriage. That was also the driving theme for the class. Since I met Maria Jarvis while working at Hogi Yogi (Mar 2002-Mar 2003), I have become even more fascinated by Marriage and the Lord's teachings on it. Maria was studying marriage sciences at BYU at the time I met her. Since I have been marriage to my beautiful wife (Nov 2003) Amber I have come to find many of the things I have learned to be very applicable to my everyday situation.

Recently my wife, and consequently I, learned that our friends were struggling in their marriage. In several attempts to help them in passing, we decided to start reading a book called And They Were Not Ashamed. My wife and I also since then made several purchases pertaining to strengthening marriage in the form of books from Deseret Book. I don't remember all of the titles, and it seems like the one I just mentioned was one of those. At any rate I have come to realize in my studies on Marriage, and other things, that one principal exists which binds every relationship among living beings and that is communication.

At a low level if communication didn't exist or were mediocre at best, then even the subsystems of the human or animal body would cease to function. In their relationship, they must communicate in order to perform everyday tasks, many of which we take for granted as we are allowed to. In effect communication keeps the realtionship between those subsystems going. Another example this time on a supersystematic relationship is our relationship with Heavenly Father. If we don't pray often to Him then our relationship with him becomes weakened. If we stop praying then Heavenly Father stops sending us guidance as often, because we are not asking for it or striving to follow the guidance he has already given us. This relationship may be more comparable to that of marriage in that we are communicating to someone whose nature is similar to ours. We both have free agency, we both have a body of flesh and bone, and we both are personages of intelligence.

Anyway the point I am trying to make by all of this is that constant, clear and open communication with your spouse readily solves at least 90% of all problems in marriage. Those problems would otherwise worsen and then cause marrital decay. One way that Amber and I have found to communicate is by reading together. Bishop Johnson (our current Bishop in Bennion Ward) suggested that we read a few articles together. The articles he gave us were of a spiritual nature and often their topic was of relationships and how to improve them, however I noticed that more than the content, the questions that arose while we were reading were what got us communicating again, and I know that reading together has brought us closer together in our marriage.