Self Worth

I know that my Savior Jesus Christ died so that I may one day live again with my Father in Heaven. I know that when Jesus suffered in the garden of Gethsemene, He thought of ME and he took my sins on him and bled from every pore so that I could have the opportunity to overcome my sins. He felt every pain that my heart has felt, every sorrow that I have had, every thing that I have cried about. He knows my pain, even if no one else in the world can see it. If for none other than that reason, I know that I am a daughter of God who is of so much worth to someone that he would die and suffer all my sins and pains for me. He has helped me to understand that I have a divine heritage, a divine nature, and a divine destiny. We belong to God the eternal Father!! God knows us and he knows our shortcomings, or weaknesses, and our strengths. Because I know this, I know that I have self worth!! Even when I am unworthy, I know that I am still of worth to God. Jesus wasn't willing to die for my sins with the false notions that I hadn't commited any, so that huge act of love proves that we should never feel like we are worthless when we do commit sins. Guess who else should love us no matter what our shortcomings.... our spouse!!! We are so lucky to have the sacred entity of marriage. It is belonging to someone who knows that you are an incredible being with so much potential. Our spouses can help us realize our worth in the eyes of God even if we feel we aren't worthy of it. We can also do the same for our spouses!!! Being a support and a comfort is one of the ways we can become more selfless and less selfish. By becoming selfless the Lord blesses us in so many ways!! Now, being selfless is not always the easiest thing. There are two types of selfishness that we talked about in my marriage prep class. One is the normal view of selfishness. You only care about yourself and don't think of others. The other way people are commonly selfish is when they are other centered. Or in other words, you only care about what other people think. By doing this, you never really become the best person you can be, you become a pupet in the sways of society and you forget your true identity as a child of a loving God who is reaching his hand toward you so that you may learn his ways and return to him once again. Now it is good to think of ways you can improve yourself to help your spouse and even friends and other family, but this is not the same as doing whatever others want you to do. I know that I am a daughter of God. I know that he loves me and I am so greatful for the sacrifice of my savior. I know that I have divine potential and that motivation is what drives me to work on being a better person for me, not to improve in the ways of the world. I know that bettering myself also betters those around me because I am able to shine my light and let others realize their divine potential!! I love my savior!!

Effecting Change in Eachother

A lot of people, especially women, have the notion that once you get married you will be able to change the little things about your spouse that you don't exactly like. There is no way we can expect to pinpoint what we consider weaknesses in our spouses and change them. However, there is a way that we can influence them to change themselves! For instance, Tim knows that I am disorganized. It used to really frustrate me becauase he would try and go through all of my stuff and tell me what homework to do next and how to do it so that I would be more effective and organized in my studies. This drove me nuts! I certainly don't learn or study the same way that he does so it was frustrating to the both of us. The next time he tried to do that I politely declined and he didn't push it. I notice that he spends more time in the library studying than he does at home. When I tried this, I noticed that I couldn't get up every few minutes to chat with my roommates or to eat something or get distracted by the tv. It slowly became something that I could do more often instead of just when I was swamped. Also, Tim writes all his assignments down before he starts his homework and puts a star by the things that he absolutely cannot leave the library without doing. This helped me too as I was able to implament this into my own study habits. I also didn't feel like I had someone looking over my shoulder telling me what to do all the time. One thing about Tim that I saw as a weakness is he has a quick temper with his roommates. He isn't ever mean to them but he isn't really nice to them either. I started to ask his roommates how they were doing and if I was cooking for Tim at his apartment, I would invite his roommates to come too! I discovered that if I was engaging in good conversation with his roommates then Tim would catch interest too and felt closer to them because he knew more about them, so in turn he was nicer to them!! I know that as amazing as Tim is, I am sure if we got married I would find that there are a few more things that bug me about Tim and vice versa. We should take these opportunities to find how we can be a better influance on them to become better people. Letting the little things slide is also VERY important! If your spouse is grumpy, recognize that and be completely supportive of them. If they are grumpy, there are usually things you can do to lighten their load so that they can do something they enjoy to brighten up their mood. Everyone gets grumpy every once in a while! Learning to help eachother and be completely supportive in their growth and learning will in return help you to learn and grow too!