Love the Lord, yourself, and your spouse

I am loving the book titled, “Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage,” by H. Wallace Goddard, PhD. I love how simply he reminds us that to have success in our marriages, we need to become more like our Savior. I truly appreciated the counsel he gave to the woman who was no longer attracted to her husband. The Spirit prompted him to tell her that, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ was the answer. Because of His goodness, we are reconciled to God. When we are reconciled to God, we are reconciled to each other. His goodness makes us one.” This reminds me of my brother’s wedding. During the ceremony, their Bishop talked about a triangle that is involved in a marriage with three points. On those three points are the husband, the wife, and the Savior. All three should be equally involved in the marriage. As the husband and the wife grow closer to the Savior, they also grow closer to each other and their marriage is unified. I have always appreciated this counsel and have made couples prayer a priority. Goddard states that, “the key to a healthy relationship is being a healthy, saintly, God-seeking person.” As long as we are staying true to our covenants and doing all we can to keep His commandments, we will be blessed. “The Gospel of Jesus Christ – that great plan of happiness – provides the solutions for our humanness.” Our Heavenly Father wants to be involved in our lives and wants to bless us. He wants to help us in all aspects of our lives, including the small, silly problems that we think He may not want to be involved with. He loves us and is our Father, of course He wants to be included in every aspect of our lives. Jesus proclaimed, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself (Luke 10:27).” It’s as simple as that. If we love our God, we will want to follow His commandments, and our lives will be blessed. For a Relief Society meeting, we had a family counselor come to share some marital advice with us. She taught about this scripture and I’ll never forget the lesson. She shared the order in which we are to love. First, we love the Lord. Later in that scripture it reads, “thy neighbor as thyself.” She explained that we must love ourselves second, and our neighbor (or our spouses) third. We have to love ourselves in order to love and show love to others. That doesn’t mean be selfish, it means to love ourselves. We are children of our Heavenly Father, He loves us, we should also love us. To think negative thoughts about ourselves is to think negative thoughts about one of God’s creations. I had never thought of it that way and it really touched my heart. I also loved this statement by Goddard, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ – that great plan of happiness – provides the solutions for our humanness.” Also, “I believe the key to a healthy relationship is being a healthy, saintly, God-seeking person.” Whenever I am irritated with my husband, when I take a step back and think about what is really bothering me, I realize that I am usually being selfish. Maybe I expected something from him that he didn’t do exactly the way I wanted, or oftentimes, I expected him to read my mind, which is impossible. I believe Goddard’s wards, that if we strive to live the plan of happiness and be “healthy, saintly, God-seeking person,” our lives and our relationships will be blessed.