Dear Family:
I'm in the middle of some reevaluation (what? Kjerstin?) and was wondering if you'd offer opinions/insight based on your wealth of experience.
A) Why do I want to get married?
Like, I think it sounds fun, and I know it's a commandment, but what is about marriage that makes it so great?
I know this: women and men complete each other in important ways. So, on a practical level I could feel less scattered and crazy. (This is what Rachel and Randy keep arguing. Here's hoping.)
It would be great to have someone around both to work with and to see the work that I'm doing--Brian Doyle (and Cormac McCarthy) talks about 'witnessing,' about how knowing that someone else knows how hard you're working is super validating.
But I'm having a hard time articulating why it is that I want to get married. Any thoughts? What has marriage brought into your life? How has it changed the people you are?
B) Also--families? Why do we do the family thing?
What I think: it's an important place to learn and teach. I like the idea of giving my family a strong foundation from which to jump into life. I want my kids to feel my love and the Lord's love strongly enough that they can move forward in hope and joy.
I've talked about home as a defining point with some of my roommates; that hopefully your home is a place where you are who you are, or you feel like you are your most true or your best self. So families define us. I think we do this with the Evans girl thing, even though most of us aren't anymore.
What have you enjoyed most and learned about families? What ought I look forward to that I'm missing?
C) My friend recommended I do this but I was kind of sheepish about it. Still am a little. Do you guys, as the people who know me best in the world, have an opinion about what I should look for in a guy? Connie: someone who wants to be good.
Anyway, any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks kids! ke
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5 comments:
I think in many ways a conglomerate of friends and extended family can fill all of the needs you're talking about (and they do for many). I think you might be missing the point about marriage and families: they are not meant to be a difficult commandment for you to fulfill, I don't think. I think they are blessings from Heavenly Father to make this otherwise irrelevant place more meaningful and pleasant. And C) I liked the thought in Juno, that you need to find someone who loves you for exactly what you are. And I would add, for what you could be and may become. Randy and I agree that you can never really know someone before you marry: regardless of the length or style of the relationship, you won't know what that person is like as a married spouse until they actually are your married spouse. So I think part of the deal is a gamble and if you both have the flexibility and sense of humor to enjoy the bumps along the way, you can make it.
Randy says:
It is nice to be loved and it is literally the Lord's work to love someone else completely. In it's ideal form it is pure good, in a world of very muddled good or worse, well-polished evil.
Re family, there is no contribution I would rather anyone make to the world than a few decent people.
Additionally, I don't think anyone can really understand selflessness until they choose to put a child first. Can anyone approach Godliness who doesn't understand selflessness? Any other excercise in self-abnegation is skipping across a deep and cleansing pond.
It is a lifetime deal with inexplicable benefits of satisfaction, heartache, joy, laughter, rage and everything inbetween. It is life and there is no substitute.
Well, as long as you are asking... I know that you and I are very different Kjerstin, so take this for what it is. A girl whose favorite movies are romances.. I think that marriage helps you grow in ways that you just can't as a single person no matter how many other great relationships you have. The depth of love you feel is just uncomparable to any other relationship I have every had. The way I feel about Jeremy and our boys transcends any relationship I have with my parents, sisters, or any friends. This goes for having a family too. Have you seen my post about Spencer today? That kid is absolutely very very challenging. But, those moments of joy we have had with him, I can't even describe the joy to watch your kids growing and happy and loving. You think you know love and joy and fun and happiness, but I really don't think you do until you get married and have a family. That might be harsh, but I really believe that. Mostly becuase my favorite scripture is about how we have to have the bad to experience the good. Because being married and having a family is the hardest and most challening, we can also experience the best moments of our life too. And, I really believe that we are here on this earth to grow and learn. I feel that the best way to do that is through marriage and family. Mostly I just love being married because I found someone who just gets me and we have an absolute blast together.
ok, me again. I didn't mean to be so long and wordy. Geez! All I really wanted to say is, stop sitting around and thinking about it so much and go out and let yourself fall madly in love. These issues all become fuzzy under the haze of new love.
Really good advice Molly. Like really good. And this is me working on it. :)
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