The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn

My sister Meredith got married this past week. right now she's on her honeymoon in Cancun Mexico and i hope that she's having the time of her life as she should be. as the wedding drew closer and the preparations began, i thought a lot about what was happening and the gravity that marriage (or the preparation of marriage) brings to a relationship. i remember wondering if what meredith was doing was right, if it would last, and how happy she would be. i suppose only time can give those answers with certainty but none the less they passed through my mind on several occasions. my mother seemed to be worried, my dad somewhat passive, my brothers in favor of it and i just wanted to be supportive. i love my sister very much, and i've come to really love her husband tony too. they are wonderful people, and they are wonderful together. the morning of the wedding, as my sister was getting everything ready, i asked her very passively if she was nervous. i think i was somewhat nervous, but then again i get nervous about everything. she calmly told me, with a sort of "duh"-tone to her voice that she was very calm about everything. later in the day, as we were in the Bountiful temple together as a family and with some close friends, i realized a few things that become very apparent to me. first off, i realized what a wonderful and sacred thing marriage is in the church. to know that we aren't just married by civil law like everyone else in the world but that we are married by the sealing powers of god which were restored through angelic ministers to prophets of god. what an incredibly powerful thought that is. i know this is something that most people already know in their brains, but to feel that power in the temple as your sister is being married by that power was something else. when the sealer (who's a friend and neighbor of ours, Bill Jones) began explaining the blessings and promises of the temple, i thought about the stereotypical relationships at BYU. there are so many people who find a cute girl or boy, date for a few weeks, "fall in love", and then get engaged after knowing each other for anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks. i know that isn't how all the engagements go, but stereotypes come from somewhere and there are a lot of people who really do that. for something that is so sacred and so important and filled with so many blessings, cant more people take their time getting to know one another? i'm heart broken when i hear of friends that break off their engagements after having put so much time and emotion into it all. obviously these relationships probably would have ended whether or not they were engaged, but breaking up is already hard to do, let alone breaking up an engagement. after seeing my sister get married, it is so plain and obvious that patience and time are key ingredients to good relationship.

One lesson that i hope that i've leaned, is that any lasting, loving, good and virtuous romantic relationship is not about love. it's not about love; at least in the sense that most people would define love as. most people when they think of love, they think of these overwhelming feelings of affection. they think of being selfless and giving everything that they have to someone else. they think of the passions and erotica and the euphoria and all the mixed emotions that come with the rapture of being caught up in the craving desire of someone else. well, that's great and all, but is that what being in love really means? i suppose everyone has their own definition as to what it means and there probably aren't any two people that feel exactly the same. i know that i have always felt different in every relationship, but allow me to give what i think it could all be about. now, i admit that i wonder if i've ever really been in love with anyone. sometimes being caught up in the moment, i believed that i had begun to tap into the reservoir of love and it's true that i had felt some of the powerful feelings described above, but as i've explained, those are only fractions of the equation, slices of a pie, or small pieces to a puzzle that should portray a picture much more beautiful. but despite all that, i believe that being in love is much more about the constant concern for the welfare of the other person. it's about sharing a companionship that grows together. it is about passing through hardships, trials, adversity, challenges and hell itself in order to understand each other better. i believe love is mostly about understanding each other's hearts and then doing everything in your power to fulfill the needs of the other. that is why "Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves" -1 Corinthians 13:4-7. If love is this powerful and this cogent, shouldn't we learn to love a little more and to do it right? I have a quote on my wall that is framed and written in beautiful calligraphy which reads, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return".