Becoming One

THOUGHTS on LESSON #12

In this day and age, there is so much push and pressure in the world to live for ourselves and focus on Me. Even among some couples, there is a cultural focus on individualized identities but we learn from D&C 38:27 that it is vital in the Lord’s eyes to be unified and if we aren’t then we are not His. Elder Henry B. Eyring has taught, “Our Heavenly Father wants our hearts to be knit together. That union in love is not simply an ideal. It is a necessity." (“That We May Be One,” Ensign, May 1998, 66 (Links to an external site.))

I was talking to my neighbor today, who is a strong woman and an active member of another Christian faith. She shared a wise message that she received as a personal prompting early in her marriage about this important relationship triangle. She said she was pondering and praying and she felt this question in her mind from God. “How will you learn to submit to Me without submitting to your husband's leadership? And how will you learn to submit to your husband without submitting to Me?!" She said as a wife and Christian, surrounded in today's society by a culture that demeans the leadership of men it is so important to remember the structure of marriage and how God set it up in the beginning.

That, of course, does not mean that men rule over their wives or that wives rule over their husbands. Men and women are equals in the sight of God and work in the marriage relationship as partners, but we have been given different divine gifts and responsibilities. Dr. Richard B. Miller said of male leadership, “A husband’s role as patriarch gives him the responsibility to serve his wife and family” (“Who Is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families”, BYU Conference on Family Life - March 28, 2008). In truth, we both have a responsibility to serve each other and look out for the interests of our spouses, no matter what role we are asked to fulfill.

Sometimes respecting my husbands' role means that I have to reel back my zeal and bite my tongue (a good exercise in restraint.) Sometimes it means that he has to get out of his comfort zone and be more assertive but as we respect each other, not just our roles, we both grow personally, we grow closer to each other and we grow closer to God. We become closer to being "one."

My Parents as Newlyweds