Love and Marriage

I am overwhelmed by so many thoughts and emotions right now, I hope I can pull some words from my heart and brain and arrange them in some sort of coherent sentence. Love and marriage are on my brain. Not for any specific reason (or boy--sadly I am incredibly disheartened and cynical when it comes the the male race of Provo Utah. And that is exactly the problem. I am so critical and judgmental and so ready to stereotype all the "lame Provo boys" or all the "lame boys" in general. It is so easy to go into dating nowadays expecting it to fail. Expecting it to not work out for whatever reason. We are all filled with excuses. "there's always someone better" there's too many fish in the sea" "he/she is divorced" "he's a player" "he/she has kids" "I'm scared" "he's scared" "bad timing" "I'm too busy" "it's too much work" "not enough fish in the sea" "everyone gets divorced, even in the church" "he/she has a sketchy past" "I'm hung up on an ex" "he/she is hung up on an ex" "I just want to have fun" "we don't have a connection" .....the list goes on and on right? We all have a hundred reasons why we don't date, why all we ever do is date, and why we never commit. We are all focused on the past. Or we are focused on the future. Which are both good. And necessary. And wonderful. But we don't look at it that way. We look at the past, we look at the present, and we look at the future, and we worry, and we doubt. And we see all the reasons why it couldn't and wouldn't work out.

Self fulfilling prophecy?

I'm a big believer in that the universe gives back whatever you put out. Our attitude, thoughts, and emotions heavily impact the world around us. One thing I've learned from sales, that applies to all aspects of life: is its all mental. And might I add spiritual. If you go into a sale with a bad attitude or not expecting to get it, guess what, you're not going to get it. But on the flip side it's amazing what a positive happy tenacious attitude will get you. Go into a sale thinking, "I can totally close this person!" and "I'm an awesome saleswoman" and you're going to get that sale! It's exhilarating. Well I've been thinking, shouldn't that same formula apply to all aspects of life. Of course it does! Duh! Go into a relationship with a hundred reasons why it should fail (and maybe they are all valid concerns) but guess what, that relationship is going to fail. Go into it head first, fearless (Taylor swift has it figured out) and you're going to have one heck of an amazing relationship. A self fulfilling prophecy.

To bring the spiritual aspect in that ties this all together in a neat little bow (I hope, I feel like I'm just rambling and stringing random thoughts together) our capacity to love others is intertwined with our capacity to live the Lord. Below is a quote from an amazing article I just read in LDS living about an LDS couple in which the husband experiences same sex attraction. His wife beautifully wrote, before they were married: "...I felt that you love me now more than many people ever love their partners or spouses. Your love for me existed long before we ever went on our first date, because it was a love you were trying to cultivate with Christ as your example, before you even felt that marriage to a woman would be possible in this life. It was who you were trying to be"

How beautiful is that?

Here is a woman with the faith, the understanding, and the courage to trust in a mans love for her. In the love of a man who experiences same sex attraction. And this was possible for her because she had faith. Faith and doubt cannot coexist. And the man, Ty Manfield, what an awesome example of coming unto the Lord and being perfected through his trials. I am sure he has had many moments of doubt and fear in his life. But he decided I time and time again to focus on his faith. And through that he developed a love for a woman much deeper and more pure than hormones and emotions. It was who he was trying to be.

His wife continues " I think so many people rely on their hormones and or their emotions to drive them that they get stuck feeling for their spouse whatever those things tell them to feel. And then if they try to feel otherwise, to love their spouse more than what hormones or emotions tell them to, they feel like they're doing their spouse a favor rather than recognizing that they hadn't understood how to truly love in the first place."

And the most poignant part of what she wrote: " I think that us coming onto each others lives, feeling drawn to each other and attracted to who the other person was and is, and then DECIDING (important key words bolded) that we want to unite our loves and CONTINUE to care for and love each other and to build our love together all WHILE STRIVING to become more like Christ, as a TEAM with Christ...I feel sad for people who don't get it and who have reduced marriage to a mere shadow of what it was intended to be and how beautiful it can be."

I do not wish to get into a debate about same sex attraction. I simply share this story about a beautiful couple who love each other deeply and have a wonderful loving relationship that is filled with struggles and hardships just as is any other relationship. But some might say they have a trial bigger than most. An elephant in the room. Think of all the reasons this couple had to fear, to doubt, to make excuses for all the reasons this relationship marriage could not and would not work. His wife Danielle wrote "I have no doubts or regrets about choosing to marry Ty. Early on, long before we were engaged, I felt a momentary flash of fear, but almost as quickly as it came, I felt a powerful, calm reassurance -: the thought, 'you can trust Ty. He is who he says he is. You know what you have felt.' the fear never returned."

I'm willing to bet that fear could have easily returned, if she had fed it. If she had decided to focus on her fears. But she didn't. She obviously made a choice to have faith and trust in her feelings and in her love. And that I guess is the point I am trying to express. That we get what we focus on. Whether it be bad or good. Her and Ty made the CHOICE to love each other and ACT on their feelings for each other by COMMITTING to each other despite their challenges. I am so humbled. I am the first to admit I have so much to learn from Danielle's amazing example. We all have pasts, but they do not define us. We learn from them, and grow from them, but we are not our pasts.

It's all about love baby. And self fulfilling prophecies. So let's all quit the games and let go of the fears, the judgments, the blame, and the reasons why not. Instead, let's focus on all the whys. All we need is love. Pure, Christlike love<3