Thoughts from Kasidy

I'm sorry if this is not something you should post on a blog, but I wanted to share this story with all of you and I couldn't think of a better way to do it.  I was preparing my lesson for Marriage and Family Relations class tomorrow when I stumbled upon this quote:

“[Love in marriage] is deep, inclusive, comprehensive. It is not like that association of the world, which is misnamed love, but which is mostly physical attraction. When marriage is based on this only, the parties soon tire of one another. … The love of which the Lord speaks is not only physical attraction, but spiritual attraction as well. It is faith and confidence in, and understanding of, one another. It is a total partnership. It is companionship with common ideals and standards. It is unselfishness toward and sacrifice for one another. It is cleanliness of thought and action and faith in God and his program. It is parenthood in mortality ever looking toward godhood and creationship, and parenthood of spirits. It is vast, all-inclusive, and limitless. This kind of love never tires or wanes. It lives on through sickness and sorrow, through prosperity and privation, through accomplishment and disappointment, through time and eternity” (President Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle [1972], 130–31).  

Right after that quote, the manual said that the type of love President Kimball was talking about is charity, the pure love of Christ.  That kind of shocked me a little bit because I had always thought of charity as the kind of love that you should have for the old folks that you go visit or the homeless people that you feed dinner to, but not the love that you should have for your spouse.  After I thought about it more, I realized that it makes a lot of sense that we should have the pure love of Christ for our spouse and that that kind of love is what we’re always striving for in this life.  Then the manual said that I should have the class read Moroni 7:45-48 and pick out all the characteristics of charity.  It recommended that all the members of the class should choose a characteristic and strive to better themselves in that way for a week.  This reminded me of a letter that I had gotten from Luke a few weeks ago. He said that he had been trying to do these things and that he had been having the most trouble with “thinketh no evil” because it’s so hard not to put down other people or think about their faults.  At this point, after getting told by the lesson to try this and then remembering how Luke had asked me to work on charity with him, I finally came to the conclusion that there is really something in this charity thing that I need to work on.  It made me feel really guilty because especially this last week, I have been focusing on the faults of the people all around me way too much.  I’ve gotten really annoyed at little things and I’ve wasted a lot of energy pointing out things that bother me about people I love.  I don’t know why I would do something like that because there is no way that is going to increase unity in our apartment or make me happier.  I think I just need to work harder to have charity and to love people for who they are and not worry about things they do that bother me.  I think I will be way happier once I can look past the little things  and just love them with the purest love there is.  I think I am a pretty long way off from experiencing that kind of love, but I know that I definitely need to try harder to get there.  I’m sorry if that didn’t make much sense, but I just thought it was a great testimony to me that Heavenly Father knows the things that we are doing wrong and how to help us.  I don’t think he’s been very happy with the way that I’ve been acting and I am sure he sent me this lesson to help me improve my attitude.  I hope I can take this wake-up call seriously and try to work on my charity.  If you guys want to try this too, just pick a characteristic of charity from Moroni 7:45-48 and work on it for a week.  I think this will be a good thing for me and I just hope you guys all know how important you are to me and how much I really do care about each one of you.  I know Heavenly Father loves you so much and he's watching over us and looking for ways to help us with this life.  I love you.