Stumbled upon today

"Sometimes I don’t see my 5-year-old either, or my husband, or my 2-year-old.  It’s easy to see them as obstacles.  But then I wake up, remember that they are here happening for me, not to me."
~ Kamille

To Give and to Receive

To give yourself to a spouse in marriage:  to remember, as life gets crazier and children come and dreams look possible and you feel the thrill and sense of accomplishment that comes from giving yourself to those people and goals, that your giving of yourself to your spouse comes first and, if nurtured, will last longest and best.  It’s easy to lose sight of that.

To receive to yourself someone as your spouse in marriage:  to remember that you actively received that spouse, the attractive and good as well as the unattractive and imperfect aspects of their lives and personalities.  It is easy, as time passes, to be annoyed and frustrated at the minor imperfections and differences your spouse brings to a marriage and to wish that they were different from what they are.  But the covenant is to receive a spouse, not selectively accept only the parts that we like best and be dissatisfied with the parts that are different.  It’s easy to lose sight of that too.

What John Murdock wrote

 “In one of these meetings [at the School of the Prophets] the prophet told us if we could humble ourselves before God, and exercise strong faith, we should see the face of the Lord. And about midday the visions of my mind were opened, and the eyes of my understanding were enlightened, and I saw the form of a man, most lovely, the visage of his face was sound and fair as the sun. His hair a bright silver grey, curled in most majestic form, His eyes a keen penetrating blue, and the skin of his neck a most beautiful white and he was covered from the neck to the feet with a loose garment, pure white, whiter than any garment I have ever before seen. His countenance was most penetrating, and yet most lovely. And while I was endeavoring to comprehend the whole personage from head to feet it slipped from me, and the vision was closed up. But it left on my mind the impression of love, for months, that I never felt before to that degree.” 

John Murdock Journal, typescript, BYU Archives, p.13, capitalization standardized, italics added