Charity: part 2

We don't typically talk about having charity in our families or marriages.  Charity is always the love we have for someone else.  The kind of love that prompts a person to give their coat to a stranger or donate money to relief causes, not the kind of love I have for my husband.  It's hard to admit that I can love my husband more, or differently, than I do now.  Because I love him a lot already.  And I don't want that love to be the same as the love I have for everyone else.  And it feels like saying that I can have more means that I don't have enough now.  What a clever way for Satan to try to prevent me from making my great marriage even better.

Scott and I dated for a long time.  Long enough to have Valentine's Day traditions.  When we finally got engaged I could hardly believe it.  I was so grateful for this gift that my Heavenly Father was giving to me that I prayed and prayed to be worthy of it, to see him and love him the way my Heavenly Father and Savior see and love him.  I thought I couldn't love him anymore, but I was wrong.  My love grew when I prayed to have charity for the man who would (after 27 short days of engagement) become my husband.  Over the years (not that many, really) I forgot about that special experience and Charity went back to being the kind of love I'm supposed to have for strangers.  My love for Scott didn't stop growing, so I became complaisant about having charity.

But the more I read about charity, the more I realized that it needs to be in my home.  It is the perfect love to bind relationships together.  The Proclamation to the World on the Family states:
"Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.  'Children are an heritage of the Lord.' Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.  Husbands and wives-mothers and fathers-will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.
Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."
I never noticed before how many times the word love is repeated in this document.  To me this looks like a beautiful description of having charity in our homes.
Moroni tells us that charity "suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

But what does this really look like in marriage?  True to the Faith admonishes: "In your relationships with family members and others, look to the Savior as your example.  Strive to love as He loves, with unfailing compassion, patience, and mercy.  As you continue to receive the Savior's perfect love and as you demonstrate Christlike love for others, you will find that your love increases."  I know that to be true.  Christ is our perfect example of charity and what it looks like to love each person equally but differently (I don't have to love my husband, children, and strangers the same way, even when I have charity for all of them).  Again from True to the Faith: "His crowing expression of charity was His infinite Atonement.  He said, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends'.  This was the greatest act of long-suffering, kindness, and selflessness that we will ever know."  It is my testimony that this sacrifice was not an impersonal suffering for strangers.  Elder Bateman said, "...For many years I thought of the Savior's experience in the graden and on the cross as places where a large mass of sin was heaped upon him.  Through the words of Alma, Abinidi, Isaiah, and other prophets, however, my view has changed.  Instead of an impersonal mass of sin, there was a long line of people, as Jesus felt 'our infirmities' '[bore] our griefs,...carried our sorrows...[and] was bruised for our iniquities'... The Atonement was an intimate, personal experience in which Jesus came to know how to help each of us."  I don't believe Christ loves me more than you. I do believe he loves me differently than you.  Think of the way he tailored his ministry to meet the unique needs of all he came in contact with.  Even as he hung on the cross he showed great love for his mother, but that love was surely different than the love he had shown earlier in his ministry for the adulterous woman.  Having charity for my spouse does not have to look like having charity for a stranger, although I should have both.