I Believe in the HAPPY Family

Even the act of writing this post today makes me nervous. I don't know what it is about me thinking, studying, or hearing about this topic that automatically makes me feel vulnerable.  Actually...I think I do know.

Growing up, I learned a lie: that the family is an unsafe place.  That marriage is full of conflict and most likely will end in failure.  The home is a  place where one has to fight to survive.  Where one feels suffocated and quite alone.  A battlefield.  A place of pain.  How can the family be such a crucial part of His plan when for me, it was a source of intense pain and confusion?  

It saddens me to think that this became my perspective of a home, of marriage, and of a family.   

Boyd K. Packer would have said to me:

"Do not lose faith in marriage.  Not even if you have been through the unhappiness of a divorce and are surrounded with pieces of a marriage that has fallen apart."

I have seen many failed marriages.  I have seen conflict, hate, disgust, degradation.  I have been witness to more than one marriage that has fallen apart.  I have seen marriages that although they still are together, they are unhappy and unhealthy relationships.

HOWEVER

There is something that I now know that I may not have understood before.

I know that marriage is ordained of God.

God has given us PROMISES.  He cannot lie.  If we are faithful to our covenants, and we work and prioritize and listen to Him, WE CANNOT FAIL.  

I believe in marriage.  

After someone takes a look into my life, all that I have seen and experienced, they may be surprised. After all the divorce?  Have you ever even witnessed any successful marriages?  After all that you have experienced, why on earth would you believe in marriage?

My response:  I believe in marriage, because I believe in God.  

      

I testify that happy and successful marriages do and can exist.  No one burdened by doubts, questions, difficult experiences, or emotional weight has to let those things cause them to doubt the eternal foundation of marriage.  

I could not have said this a year ago.  I felt burdened by fear.  I felt so utterly afraid that I wouldn't even let myself admit that I DID want a happy marriage.  I wouldn't let myself feel it for fear that it may never happen.  For fear that maybe it doesn't exist.  That I was doomed to follow the family patterns set before me.

God, knowing my heart, my life, and my perspective, healed me.  He showed me the truth and the light.  He sent me what I needed to SEE in His plan and helped me to BELIEVE.  

God's plan is perfect, and He wants us to succeed.  The only way to overcome the fear of the future is to learn to trust in the promises of God.  Even when you can't see how it could possibly be true.  Even when you know it is true, but you are afraid that by letting yourself admit to what you want, that if you don't get it, it will be all the more devastating.  But once you start to believe, God shows you not only what is true but why it is true.  And reassures you that you can indeed receive the blessings of His promises.  That is what He has done for me, and I am so grateful to Him.    

For all those families who have been affected by divorce, contention, and abuse, I testify that there is hope.  Even though my family has been broken time and time again, I can see His hand mending my family. Elder Holland says, "God loves broken things."  I know that He loves my family and all the families that are struggling.  He loves all those children who may grow up with the same fears and broken perspectives that I had.  He has healed me and helped me to change my warped perspective on marriage and the family, and I know that He knows what every single person who has ever existed needs to help them overcome whatever fears, warped-ness, or weight that their experiences or choices create.  

God knows us.  He loves us.  And He will help us to find and clearly see the truth.  

Families not only can be eternal, they can be HAPPY.

With lots of love,

Rachel