Making Weak Links Strong

THOUGHTS FROM LESSON #4

For the past two weeks, I have been creating a Genogram in order to study the marriage trends of at least three generations of my extended family. In that generation alone there are nearly 200 people, many who I have lost touch with over the numerous years since my adolescence, and others who I have never even met. Needless to say, it has become an enormous research project just to find and gather the information necessary for tracking those trends. I have not yet finished inputting all of my data, but as I survey each marriage and so much surprising divorce, much which had their beginnings as promised covenants in Latter-Day Saint temples, I cannot help but feel a little vulnerable and personally re-examine my own efforts at covenant keeping.

Bruce C. Hafen has suggested that trouble can come slinking into our marriages like the symbolic wolf at the sheepfold door if it is based on a contractual commitment and not a covenant one. The contracted hireling will flee from danger, but the covenant shepherd will “lay down his life” (making selfless choices daily) in order to guard the protective enclosure that houses those he loves. He states that these “wolves” can come in the forms of natural adversity, personal imperfections, or excessive individualism. (Bruce C. Hafen, Covenant Marriage, Oct. 1996 General Conference)

Of course, I do not know the root causes of many of our family marriage breakdowns, but I have seen some of the sad symptoms of addictions, anger mismanagement, abuse, infidelity, indulgence, and almost always selfishness. There are cases in my family tree where the unfortunate damage was caused predominantly by one spouse who refused to change, but even when both husband and wife are working on themselves, no marriage is immune to enemy invasion. Certainly, one spouse cannot protect it alone, though we alone are responsible for our own actions. Both spouses together add enormous strength but even this teamwork of two does not possess the power necessary to ensure that the sheepfold is secure in a brutal enemy attack. We must be joined with Christ, united as vigilantly stationed sentries if we are to ward off every attack and guarantee that our marriages live, for “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:11)

I cannot patch, repair or fix actions that are not mine but I can change me. I can try harder to love more and criticize less, forgive freely and repent often, serve regularly and engage fully. In short, I can work daily to become the person that I want my husband to be. Only then will I have true influence over making weak links strong in my own family, because I will cease to be one.

Three Generations - 2014