Last Little Bit

Well it's the end of the semester and we've actually reached that point! I'm going on to get married and who knows what the rest of you are planning on doing, but I wish you all the best of luck doing it! While I was doing my Top 10 assignment and was remembering bits and pieces of what we've learned my gratitude for the things we were taught in this class grew and I realized that there truly are some gems that I know will help me throughout my family life. Yay!

Remarried Families

The discussions that we've had in class, as always, have made me a little nervous. I think that that is simply because they make me more aware, but I also have a few more tools under my belt. 1) I can be better about understanding the plights and difficulties that remarried families are having 2) I have ways to help others or, heaven forbid, myself to adjust to those changes successfully and 3) If I would have thought 80 times before getting a divorce before, I'll think 81 times now. I never considered it but now I'll consider it even less now, unless of course it's absolutely necessary.

Patience in Parenting

Brother Williams's story today about some of his parenting experiences really made me think a lot about how I'm going to parent. I've had quite a bit of practice with my niece and nephew as well as with my younger siblings, and I have to say for myself that I have gotten much more patient. However, I know that I have a lot of work to do when it comes to being prepared for parenting. What gave me a lot of peace, however, was when he was talking about the promptings and voices he heard in intense and important situations. I know that these children that I'll have are first and foremost Heavenly Father's children and He will give me everything I need to raise them successfully.

Fatherhood

I'll admit that I just barely completed my fatherhood paper for Family Relations class. But I have to say how grateful that I am for the opportunity that I had to research that and think about it in relation to my future family. Like I said in my paper, I've always been afraid of how my future husband will father and whether he'll have a positive or negative effect on our children, but now I realize that I have a lot more power than I knew regarding how husband fathers. Yes!

Council with Your Counsels

When we read that talk by Elder Ballard I really love a lot of the things he talked about. I love them so much, in fact, that I talked to my fiance about a couple of the points. I think it'll be such a precious ability in our relationship to be able to communicate and "discuss, discuss, discuss" things; maintaining "profound respect" and, in the end, being 100% together on the end result. The best part, I thought, was when the speaker in the sound bite talked about how the Spirit will tell you when something the right decision. It's important and possible for us to remain so open because we're not discussing the matter in order to find out who will win, but to find out the truth.

Stressors

When we discussed stressors, I got an overwhelming sense of fear (not a big surprise since that happens a lot, but this one was particularly potent). I began to imagine all of the things that my future family might possibly have to go through. Death? Divorce? Child rebellion? Poverty? I ruminated on that for the next couple of days, increasing my anxiety even more. But the more I thought about it, the more I also thought about the coping mechanisms and the strategies. I especially liked reading about the things that I could do, as a future mother and wife. So, come what may, I have the Lord on my side and now I also have these coping mechanisms.

God Hath Not Given Us the Spirit of Fear

Earlier this week we talked about affairs and how to prevent them. Honestly it's always made it very difficult for me to fully be comfortable with marriage. When I was reading it, I got even more afraid. So I talked with my fiance about it and we came up with some rules/precautions of how to avoid getting anywhere near situations that would tempt either of us, or anyone else for that matter, to be unfaithful in any way. Every time I discuss anything with him I fall in love with him all over again because I know that he's telling me the truth. It shows his integrity to me and I can't figure out how I got so lucky. However, like I said earlier, we both know that when we allow ourselves to be in certain situations enough then, after a while, our character doesn't matter. The Lord advises us to stay out of those situations, therefore, we will. I fear infidelity so much less now that I've discussed this with him. Marriage truly is a leap of faith.