A Marriage, Clean and Pure

I really enjoyed reading Chapter 5 from "Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage" by H. Wallace Goddard this week.  I found lots of great quotes that I'll include. 
Quote #1
"The covenant we make with God to avoid all sexual relations outside of marriage precludes no only physical, but also romantic relationships outside of marriage, even if they are mental or emotional." 

I like this quote.  We are all human, and all have to overcome the natural man.  Sometimes we might be tempted not physically but emotionally or mentally.  We need to keep our thought pure and clean.

Quote #2
"The Lord does not want us to drop out of His finishing school at the first sign of challenge.  Also, the Lord is not a heavenly hit man who takes out selected children in order to satisfy our whims and lustful fantasies.  He askss instead that we learn to love each other and overlook the inevitable faults we discover.  He asks that we honor commitments and strengthen our partners.  He asks that we be as good and kind to our partners as we would have them be to us.  This is the Christian mandate in its most soul-stretching form."

This quote made me laugh because I know that wished for a heavenly hit man for my ex-brother-in-law.  He can be just so obnoxious.  But that is not how Heavenly Father works.  We can't drop out of finishing school.  We have to constantly be working at our marriage. 

As I was reading this chapter it reminded me of the movie Ever After.  This is a Cinderella story.  Throughout the whole movie the step-mom and her oldest daughter are always conspiring to somehow connect with the prince.  Accidentally Cinderella met the prince and then had secret meetings with him.  This really infuriated the step-mom and step-sister.  It became their quest to figure out who the prince was spending time with.  Well in the end Cinderella marries the prince without her step-mom and step-sister knowing.  Then they are finally introduced to the prince's new wife.  They are stunned to find that it was Cinderella.  These two were just about to be banished.  But in this scene, the step-mom and step-daughter who have been working together through the whole movie, turn on themselves.  They start pointing fingers at one another.  This reminds me of the adversary's plan.  Once he gets us to fall into sin, then he turns on us in the end.  He doesn't care about us.  All he cares is that he made us fall.

Finally, I like 10 suggestions by Brother Goddard.
1.  Do not allow the seeds of lust to germinate.  Do not look on another woman or man with lust.  Do not entertain mental fantasies of romance or passion.  Do no let your mind be poisoned with the sick encounters in soap operas, worldly literature, or any form of pornography.
2.  Never make excuses to spend time alone with a person of the opposite sex who is not your spouse.  Guard the level of emotional intimacy you build with a non-spouse.  As Shirley Glass, a scholar on faithfulness, said, we should maintain a wall between us and those who are not friends to our marriage-who threaten it in any way.  We may open a window to those who are friends of our marriage.  And there should be no walls nor windows between us and our spouses.  We should be as one.
3.  Take responsibility for the messages that you give.  You do not have the right to be "cute" or flirty with anyone but your spouse.  Do not use cards, gifts or charm to win the affection of anyone who is not your spouse.
4.  Do not allow your heart to dwell on anyone.  Push daydreaming of any person but your spouse out of your mind promptly.  When you are worried about the intruder, pray for him or her and trust Heavenly Father to care for him or her.  the untangling of excuses and emotional dependance can be the hardest part of overcoming the addiction.
5.  Spend more enjoyable time with your spouse.  Have weekly dates doing those things that you enjoy together.  Find ways to improve your relationship.  Be patient.  Recognize that many of our frustrations with our spouses are build on the the false assumption that they ought to be a certain way.  Change your assumptions.  Recognize the even the best marriages have more and less satisfying times.  Be Patient.  Be true to your covenants.  Enjoy your partner as he or she is.  It is easy to believe that things will never be right with your spouse.  Trust the Lord that He can heal all wounds.
7.  Renew your spiritual efforts.  Turn to the Lord in prayer.  Ask for strength to put temptation out of your mind.  Fill your empty places with service, scripture study, and love for your family.
8.  Don't set yourself up for failure.  Don't allow yourself to spend time alone with the person.  Avoiding is better than resisting.  Make your spouse a partner in all of your efforts to help a person of the opposite sex.
9.  Keep your soul free of the soul-numbing barrenness of pornography.  The greatest sin of pornography may be that it reduces the sacrament of intimacy to a random and wanton act of self-gratification.  Preserve or renew your awe in the blessing of simple acts of affection.
10.  Celebrate the sweet gift of companionship.  The amazing message from our marriage partner is: "I'm trusting you with my life, my body, my hopes, my dreams.  Please be kind and gentle."  Each of us should rejoice in the sacred gift of spousal trust.  If we have squandered any part of it, we should work to re-qualify for it.

I really liked all of these great reminders of ways to keep our marriages clean from the adversary's pull to do evil.

And final quote
"To those who claim their love is dead, let them return home with all their loyalty, fidelity, honor and cleanness, and the love that has become but embers will flare up with scintillating flame again.  If love wanes or dies, it is often infidelity of though or act that gave the lethal potion."

My sister and I talk, not necessarily about this lesson specifically but about this class in general.  I told her to buy The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.  I know that Gottman's book can help any marriage, especially if we to all of his different exercises.