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Lesson 10 - Charity in Marriage

I received a weekly missionary email this morning from one of my former seminary students. In it, she shared an idea that her mission president shared with her. He said, “When we are constantly striving to progress, we can do things with the Lord we have never been able to do before.” She went on to explain that she saw endless possibilities in this statement and that if we are better than we were yesterday, we are progressing. Her post seemed to fit nicely with the reading I have done this week for my Marriage class.

Charity - The Pure Love of Christ

I loved her message and found great application as it related to our class reading this week about charity. Charity is the pure love of Christ. During stressful times, it can be hard to have a charitable heart. The key is to work on developing charity in the day-to-day interactions we have with one another so that when the stressful times come, we will have developed a habit of seeing the good and giving our spouse the benefit of the doubt. H. Wallace Goddard in his book, Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, teaches us that Jesus Christ is our greatest exemplar and as we understand Christ’s love for us and others, we can learn to love like Him. In other words, we can develop charity.

But how do we develop charity? The Book of Mormon gives a clear answer to this question in Moroni 7:48. It says we are to pray for charity and become a true follower of Jesus. As we become His follower, we will become like Him and, therefore, see others as He sees them.

Simply Secret Service

My husband has a charitable heart. He thinks of me during the day and sends little texts or emails. He is always looking for opportunities to bring joy to my life. My daughters, a daughter-in-law and I recently had a conversation about this. I said that my husband tries really hard to meet my needs and wants. My daughter-in-law expressed frustration that her husband (my son) is always doing things for her, but he doesn’t want anything in return. I know it’s a real struggle for her because she wants to show her love by doing and yet he doesn’t ask for anything. I explained that I try to do secret things that will bring my husband joy since he rarely asks for anything specific either. One of my daughters piped up and said, “Yeah, like pastries on the counter!” My husband loves pastries, but he says he doesn’t need any when we go shopping. When I go shopping alone, I try to remember to buy him a little something sweet and leave it on the counter. We’ve all noticed that he nibbles away at it. I know the pastry makes him happy, and it’s a way I can show love to him when he doesn’t ask for anything specific.

The scriptures teach that we are to seek charity “with all the energy of heart” (Moroni 7:48). As we seek to have the mind of Christ, choose to see our spouse in a positive light, accept differences and live with patience, we will develop charity and build a strong marriage. Goddard wrote, “Rather than re-working our partners to our liking, we are invited to cover their weaknesses with our charity!” (Goddard, 125). Let’s look for opportunities to live charitably, especially in our marriages!

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