Marriage

Marriage is essential to Heavenly Father's plan. It always has been and it always will be. And that means marriage between a man and a woman, no other way. When a marriage is between a man and a woman, they can start a family. For the most part that family can happen in a natural way. Of course some families struggle to have children, but that's okay because if they can't have them in this life, Heavenly Father has promised that they can in the next life. They will have an increase without end, if they are faithful. This applies to all families that are sealed in the temple and live righteously.
"Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children" (The Family: Proclamation to the World, paragraph 6). This is what is expected of us from our Heavenly Father. It's super important that we heed this council. This week in my New Testament class we were reading in 1 Corinthians and I read chapter 7. I had never read this chapter before but a verse stuck out to me. That was verse 3: "Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband." Now, I had a general idea of what benevolence meant, but I wanted to know for sure. It means the quality of being well-meaning or kindness. Pretty simple. This verse means that a husband and wife should be kind to each other. I thought it was very sweet that Paul felt that people should be reminded to be kind to each other.
One of the main things that my father-in-law encourages my husband and I to do is to be kind to each other. It's like the only thing he encourages us to do. I think kindness is so important in marriage. We promised to be with each other for forever. Would you want to be sealed to someone who wasn't nice to you? When you're deciding who to marry, always ask yourself if the person you're dating respects you and if they're kind to you. This applies to men and women, cuz I know there are some women out there who aren't very nice.
I remember when I was single and had roommates and my roommates would come home from a date. We'd always ask them how it went and what he was like and they would say he was a very kind person. That's it. But they said it in a way that gave it a negative connotation and we knew that she wouldn't be going on a date with him again. It made me think that when they were using the word kind to describe him, that was synonymous with boring. Kind doesn't mean boring! Kind means kind and kind is a great thing to be. Marriages should involve kindness and love and caring.