There is no proper way in my mind to introduce the passion and stubborn vehemence I feel toward this blog topic: the family. My emotions, creative experiences, deliverance, and joy either flow toward or appropriately stem from family.
We study the surface of lethargically large rivers, watching shrink-wrap ripples without consideration for the turbulent, powerful volume of water that pours past our stationary bodies; consideration of family is generally such a sight-seeing experience. Yet, this week, I was self-shoved, nigh thrown, headfirst into the circulating and clean waters of family. In a resurrection of strong old passions, I embarked to inundate my mind with the LDS doctrine behind the importance of family. I set out a study plan scheduled for several months, spanning several LDS cannons, making sure to include the sinking of my knees to prayer. From my study I intended to not only increase my testimony of the family, but become expert on scriptural references, quotes, and authoritative themes relating in all aspects to the family.
To understand where I intended to head with my study of family, you must peak a little into my past. As I am often wont, I fell in love with a generously happy man with whom I had an intended life. The relationship was severed, and I was left reconsidering both the joys and the sacrifices I had made for my then-actual, and upcoming potential family. I dared not openly consider, but often found the creeping of emaciated darkness making its way into my mind. Why the family? Why condone sacrifice for something that had just afforded me such intense pain? What is the purpose of family?
In what seemed a daily consummate act of faith, continually exerted for months leading to seasons, I decided to abandon the pain of a lost relationship, and replace it instead with the faithful hope of a future. I decided despite any types of hurt, whether intended, projected, or real, I would continue to have expectations toward and make decisions based on my future family. I would still orient my life and lifestyle toward preparing for family. I would still embrace the doctrine of family. I would still seek and openly express love that would lead to a family. In process of time, I have learned to preeminently consider my children yet unborn, and my family yet uncreated.
In short, I decided that whatever the fallen travails that would assault my faith in the doctrine of the family, I would yet be a woman who loves and prepares for family.
And, oh, how I've found what I was searching for: fulfillment. And an expectation of the fulfillment of all my varied capacities, by forseeing an individualized maximum taxation of each talent acquired, ability learned, and thought developed.
This point of view may seem idealistic or naive, young or even, well, stupid. I understand the inherent financial and physical (as well as emotional, time-based, and selfish) limitations that may be invoked. Yet, as a woman who has braced the coal-fire of building a testimony, my adherence to family is based on none of the above reasons, or exceptions to the above reasons. It is based on the doctrine of the family.
It is a mature point of view that accepts the responsibility to seek out a worthy companion and raise a righteous posterity to the Lord. It is a tried point of view which considers the longest standing established unit of all time. It is a compassionate point of view that wills the happiness of others above herself. It is the point of view which aligns with the prophecies of latter-day prophets, and it is the point of view from which I have derived a fulfilled, satiated happiness that has outlived all others. It is the point of view that becomes engaged in politics, by raising informed children; contributes to the arts, by cultivating an appreciation for the creativity, color, music, and vibrancy of life in youth; furthers cultural integration by giving children a safe situation in which to explore other peoples; mitigates hatred, by educating open minds to a portfolio of truths; raises the humanistic expectations of heros, by providing a flesh-and-blood role model who those that seek may not only consider, but with whom they may also converse. It is the point of view of truth.
Thus, the decision to make an in-depth study of the doctrine behind the family. Just days after I had commenced my research regime, I read the following LDS document on my mirror: The Family: A Proclamation to the World. I was taken aback with the affluence of very simple, yet very directed doctrine contained therein. It is the summation of what my personal studies will yet reveal. It concicesely states the basis for the doctrine of the family. It was a little nudge in the right direction. Also consider the March 2011 Ensign Article, Teaching the Doctrine of the Family, by Sister Julie B Beck.
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