Beautiful Chaos!

Lesson 13 - Family Rules and Legacies Every family has rules and those rules include those about money. In his book, Till Debt Do Us Part , Bernard Poduska shares his thoughts about monetary family rules. He explains that “family rules are maintained and transmitted across generations on three levels: explicit, implicit, and intuitive” (Poduska, B. (2000). Till Debt do us Part, (Chapter 2). Salt Lake City, Utah: Shadow Mountain). We have seen that transmission over generations in our family. Thankfully, my husband and I both had good examples to transmit to our children. Family Unity My son-in-law is Venezuelan by birth. He and my daughter met while both were serving their missions. After their missions, they had an unplanned meeting and were engaged a few months later. During that time, we learned that my son-in-law was a DACA recipient whose dream was to become a United States citizen. Honestly, I didn’t really know anything about the process he would be required to go t...

Lesson 12 - Who is the Boss? Photo by <a href="/photographer/spekulator-53353">B S K</a> from <a href="https://freeimages.com/">FreeImages</a> This week for my Marriage class we read an article called “Who is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families” by Richard Miller, PhD, of Brigham Young University. His presentation discussed the issues of power, control, and hierarchy in families. He brought up several valuable points and I want to share my thoughts on a couple of them. 1.        “The parent-child hierarchy dissolves when children become adults.” I have five grown children, three are married and two are single. Of those five, the two single daughters and one married son have been living with us for the past three months. Thankfully, they didn’t all move home at once so my husband and I have been able to make adjustments along the way. We have seen the challenges others have faced when their children came home ...

Lesson 11 - Fidelity in Marriage “Infidelity is one of the great sins of our generation.” President Spencer W. Kimball In our class reading this week, I have discovered the many facets of the word fidelity. Having previously only considered a limited definition, this was eye-opening for me. Kenneth Matheson, professor of Social Work at Brigham Young University, defines fidelity as “complete commitment, trust, and respect between husband and wife.” He further states, “Inappropriate interactions with another person can erode fidelity.” ( Fidelity in Marriage: It’s More Than You Think , Kenneth W. Matheson) College Memories While I was reading his article, my mind wandered back to my first year of college. I had a great friend in college named Kip who was in the same home evening group as I was. We enjoyed our group activities, and that was really all there was to it. We never dated or entertained romantic thoughts. When the college year came to an end, we exchanged addresses ...

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 go...

Lesson 9 - Merging Required I live out in the country so I drive a lot. It takes fifteen minutes to get to the nearest grocery store and thirty minutes to get to any kind of shopping center. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but this choice means I spend a lot of time driving. When my children were younger, the drive times were perfect for little chats to see how they were doing. I learned that they opened up in ways they didn’t when we were home and distracted. I had a captive audience! Now that my children are grown, I have quiet time in the car which gives me time to think and ponder. I have found analogies that I can use to strengthen my relationships. Here is an example:         When I started driving as a teen, I was scared to do my assigned freeway drive. I knew I would need to speed up on the on-ramp and then merge with fast-moving traffic. With my instructor’s help, I was able to accomplish the drive. After practicing, merging with onco...

Lesson 8 - Pride in Marriage My youngest daughter has had her share of relationships, but there was one in particular that my husband and I were grateful to have come to a conclusion. This relationship began when she was home on summer break from BYU-Idaho. She worked in an office where the young man was working in sales during his summer break from BYU. He was one of the top salesmen and is destined to be a very successful man in the world’s eyes. They had a very speedy time dating and when the young man came to ask my husband for his daughter’s hand in marriage, the conversation went as follows: Young man: “I would like to marry your daughter, and I’m asking for your permission.” My husband: “We think you are nice, but we wish we knew you better.” Young man: “What would you like to know?” My husband: “For starters, what is your last name? We don’t even know what our daughter’s last name will be.” Our daughter doesn’t typically like a lot of flash or attention. Kno...

Lesson 7 - Make the Sauce I recently traveled to Puyallup to spend two days with my 13-year-old niece. She is struggling a bit, needed a friend, and wanted me to teach her how to crochet. It was a wonderful time with family. While I was there, I observed components of my sister’s strong marriage. My brother-in-law is Italian, and they like to make pasta sauce from scratch. For years I have heard rave reviews about the sauce, but I hadn’t been to a meal where it had been served. Since I was there, my sister thought it would be nice for me to try Vince’s sauce. She says she knows how to make it, but everyone thinks Vince’s is more authentic. About 3:30 on the day of my arrival, we were headed out to get yarn for my niece. Before we left, my sister set out all the ingredients and equipment needed to make the sauce so that it would be easier for Vince to make when he got home from work. I could tell this was a normal routine for her; she wasn’t bothered by it at all. Microcultur...

Lesson 6 - Mother Eve When my children were younger, I wrote poems on their lunch sacks every school day. They were simple snippets of words that always rhymed. My youngest daughter now doesn’t consider a poem to be a real poem unless the lines rhyme. I do appreciate poetry, but will not typically sit down and read a book of poetry. I have failed to complete a poetry book the few times I have tried to be “cultured” by reading poetry. Lamentation That being said, I recently read a poem that touched me deeply, and it doesn’t rhyme. It was filled with meaningful thought and, as I read, I found tears streaming down my face. This poem, Lamentation by Arta Romney Ballif, is a thoughtfully written poem about Eve’s experiences as a mother and wife. We all know the story of Cain and Abel, but I hadn’t previously considered their experience through the lens of their mother, Eve. This moving poem brought that perspective to me. I have a three-month-old grandson living in my home rig...

Lesson 5 - "You're Number One!" Marry your best friend is a common bit of advice that people are given. In fact, when my husband and I were married, we received this advice. In his book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Gottman says that “happy marriages are based on a deep friendship” (pg. 21). He defines this as mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company. This friendship is something that my husband and I have developed over the years. Number One Fan When we had been married for about three years, I sat in a Relief Society lesson which was taught by a woman I greatly admired. I had babysat for her family over the years and knew the comfortable, safe home she provided for her children. As she taught about marital relationships, I listened intently because I knew I would gain from her wisdom. She taught that we should be president of our husband’s fan club. From there, she explained how a president would act including that a presiden...

Lesson 4 - A Contract or a Covenant? When my husband and I were married, we were blissfully unaware of the challenges that would lie ahead. We began dating when I was in high school and after a time we broke up. We got back together, and he left on a church mission the same month I entered BYU as a college freshman. While he was out serving, the Church changed the length of missions from two years to eighteen months which was probably divine intervention, because I was seriously dating another young man. Ray got home from his mission February 1983, we were engaged by April, and married in July. Prior to our marriage, we didn’t have any serious discussions about our future. We didn’t discuss how many children we wanted or how we were going to raise them. I do think, however, that we both knew the other person was committed to making our marriage work and that gospel living was an important element to our future. We have now been married for almost 36 years. We have exp...

Lesson 3 - Defending Traditional Marriage “We … solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God…. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan…. We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” (The Family: A Proclamation to the World, 1995) As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I remember when this proclamation went out to the world. I remember thinking the principles contained in this document were obvious. Why was there a need to publish a proclamation about something so common as what constitutes a family? Fast forward twenty years, and it’s clear that these leaders were acting prophetically in their pronouncements. In my limited view, I could not see the attacks that would come on traditional marriage. In 2015, the United States Supreme Court guaranteed the right ...

Lesson 2 - True Heroism My mother grew up in the “Ozzie and Harriet” era, but lived a life far different from what was portrayed on the television. As the oldest of three children, she experienced first-hand the destructiveness that comes from contention and divorce. As she would put it, her “parents loved each other but couldn’t live together.” Consequently, they married, divorced, and remarried each other. I believe they were working through a second divorce when my grandfather passed away from the effects of alcoholism. When they were together, there was an abundance of yelling and contention. She grew up with the economic hardships and exposure to stress described by Paul Amato’s article, “ The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Cognitive, Social, and Emotional Well-Being of the Next Generation .” He stated, “In general, … children in high-conflict households experience many of the same problems as do children with divorced parents. In fact, some studies show that chi...