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. 

On My Mind: Charity

A few weeks ago the husband, M, and I were sitting the Stake President's office making nice small talk wondering who was getting what calling.  "Kayce, we'd like to ask you to speak in Stake Conference in two weeks."  Relief.  It didn't matter what he said next.  Topic: charity.  More small talk.  "Any specific direction you'd like me to go?" I finally think to ask realizing charity is a HUGE topic.  "Charity in marriage" he replied.  I was on such a relief high (last time we were in that office the husband got put into the Elder's Quorum presidency...well, 2 times ago, last time he was released because I was just called to be the Relief Society president.  Hope that helps you understand the level of relief I was feeling) that I just wrote it down without much thought and off we went.  And then on Monday, when I typed charity and marriage into the search on lds.org and my search yielded no results, reality hit.  I'm not going to lie, my talk didn't come together until Saturday afternoon (I was speaking Saturday night).  But I studied and studied and learned a lot and it came together (the topic, not so sure about the talk?) in a really profound way for me.  I can't stop thinking about it.  So I'm going to recreate it here for you.  I also want to flesh some ideas out that I didn't have time for in the talk, so I'm going to do a few posts so as not to bore you to death with pages and pages of a church talk in one sitting.  Feel free to read or not.  And it's still applicable if you're not married, this is about relationships here.

The first thing I realized on this adventure was that I really didn't really understand what charity is (embarrassing to admit?).  I know it's the pure love of Christ, but what does that really mean?  I know that it never fails, but never fails what?  I've spent so much time hearing and talking about what charity is not (an organization or merely an action) that I never spent much time thinking about what charity actually is.  Come to find out there are a myriad of definitions of charity that helped me understand it's depth and importance.  Like any internet savvy girl, I felt compelled to see what Google and Wikipedia had to tell me.  Come to find out Wikipedia thinks there are tow types of charity: the practice of charity and the virtue of charity.  Interesting.  I like to the think developing the virtue of charity leads to the practice of charity, even if Wikipedia means something different.  Here are some of the great definitions I found:

1- Charity is the pure love of Christ. Mornoi 7:47
2- "Charity is a gift of the Spirit which must be gained if one is to have salvation" Mormon Doctrine
3- "And above all things, clothe yourselves with the bond of charity, as with a mantle, which is the bond of perfectness and peace." D&C 85:125 uh, wow.  Think about that in the context of any important relationship- I want that.
4- "And above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness" Colossians 3:14 -so great I had to include it twice.
5- "In Spanish the word chairty menas 'the love that never ceases to be.' In Micronesia the word love translates into 'the power to change lives.'" Barbara B. Smith
6- "Charity is our love for the Lord, shown through our acts fo service, patience, compassion, adn understanding for one another." I forgot to put the citation for that in my talk, if you really want it let me know and I can dig it up.
7- "Charity is 'the pure love of Christ,' or, 'everlasting love.'" True to the Faith
8- "True charity is love in action." Thomas S. Monson

I don't want to say too much about how any of the specific definitions impacted me as I was studying because I hope that they can mean something to you personally as you read them.  I don't want to taint your personal application. 

Charity never fails because it isn't finite.  There's no cap to the love that Christ has for me and there's no limit to my ability to tap into and share that love.  It never runs out.  Charity can never fail, I can only fail to have charity.