Relationship checklist – Critical marriage, family survival, Mormon temple marriage

The first and foremost point in relationship checklist reveals marriage and family has been and will most likely continue to be the single relationship where husbands, wives, and children experience a level of closeness and love found in no other relationship. The intimate relationships forged within the context of a relationship where both partners practice love and trust cannot be created outside of that family. At least that’s the way it is supposed to be.

The problem comes in when folks who have experienced a different sort of family life make a sincere attempt to try and create something that they perceive as an ideal marriage and family situation, adds the next point in relationship checklist. But these folks have no basis on which to use as a reference or example to build their own marriage and family. There are time-tested truths that have endured for generations. The wisdom in these truths needs to be re-learned.

Sound Marriage Advice to Help Save Marriage

There is a reason sound marriage advice is considered sound advice. It’s advice that has withstood everything that time and events can throw at it, and still come out unchanged. This type of marriage advice is based in some basic absolute truths about people and relationships. Trust is one of these basic absolute truths reveal the next chapter of relationship checklist.

Trust is one of those things that is difficult to attain in a relationship, but is critical for any relationship to progress forward. Trust is a powerful tool that can help relationships to grow and deepen to unimaginable levels. Think about the trust which develops between a couple that is truly and unconditionally in love. That’s the stuff movies and great romances are made of. Without trust, folks can become disillusioned, hurt, bitter, and resentful.

Learning Trust Before Marriage

While making a relationship checklist this is also a valid point. In a marriage relationship where the husband and wife are planting the seeds of trust every day, folks see them treat one another with adoration, intimacy, genuine concern, affection, sacrifice, and respect. Planted each day, these seeds of trust will eventually begin to grow a crop of deeper trust to be shared and enjoyed by the married couple and those around them, including their children.

If believed to relationship checklist expert children learn trust from their first teachers, the parents. If the parents are planting the seeds of trust, then the children will see their example, see the end product of marriage relationship. This trust is founded, built, and firmly stands on a relationship that has been cultivated through good and bad times. Children learn by seeing that trust is built on a little day after day, and is a protection when times get tough.

Trust Determines Future Relationship Success or Failure

“Trust is at the core of successful and long–term marriages,” according to Drs. Charles and Elizabeth Schmitz, who were quoted in the article “Building Great Marriages” in Psychology Today on March 18, 2010. They went on to say that folks who have a misguided perception of trust are delusional about what is actually required for a successful marriage. What’s worse is these confused folks seem to be regarded as experts simply because they have experienced several marriages.

Although trust in the marriage relationship seems such a simple concept, the skyrocketing divorce rate indicates that some folks do not get it. Some folks just didn’t have the model of a trusting, loving relationship demonstrated in their family. Does that mean one does not get help and begin learning the vital importance of trust in relationships? Absolutely not, adds relationship checklist expert.

Mature adults take responsibility for their actions, they find a way to fix something if it’s broken. Not only that, if trust in marriage is not attained, from where will the children learn trust? Parents find ways to repair a relationship, learn to love and respect one another. For the sake of the marriage relationship and the family, start down the road toward being a functional, loving, and trusting couple.

Mormon Temple Marriage

From a very young age, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) are encouraged to marry in the temple when they grow up. Marriage represents the most important ordinance of the Mormon temple, binding families together for eternity and making exaltation possible. It is the true place for godly relationships in married life.

Temple Recommends Required for Temple Sealing

Couples wanting to marry in the temple must first talk to their ecclesiastical leaders to obtain temple recommends signifying their worthiness to enter the house of the Lord. After receiving their recommends and completing the initiatory and endowment ordinances, they can be married in the temple. The guest list for temple weddings is encouraged to be limited to family and very close friends. All attendees must carry temple recommends.

What Happens in a Temple Wedding Ceremony

Both the bride and the groom wear white ceremonial clothing in the sealing rooms of the temple. In appearance, temple sealing rooms are white and beautiful. Large wall mirrors are situated on either side of the room, representing eternity as the couple looks in the mirror to see a reflection seems to go on forever.

The officiator in the ceremony usually gives some personal words of advice and counsel to the couple first. The couple then kneels across the altar from each other and the words of the ceremony are pronounced, which explain the covenants and blessings that stem from eternal temple marriage. The brief ceremony is about 20 minutes long, and does not include music or walking down an aisle.

LDS Wedding Parties and Receptions

The sealing ceremony in the temple involves just the bride and groom. But couples often choose to take pictures outside the temple before or after the ceremony with a wedding party consisting of bridesmaids, groomsmen, and so on.

Couples usually plan a reception or open house following the temple ceremony to celebrate their wedding with friends and family. They may even choose to have a short ring ceremony at the reception, since exchanging wedding rings is not part of the LDS temple sealing. A typical Mormon reception includes food and dancing, and aside from the absence of alcohol, it’s probably much like any other wedding reception.

Temple Marriage vs. Civil Marriage

Mormons often call temple marriage a “temple sealing” or “eternal marriage” because couples married in the temple will be “sealed” together for all eternity, not just until death. It is called godly relationships. Any children they have are also automatically sealed to them, cementing their family together forever.

Civil marriage is any wedding performed in a church meetinghouse, courthouse, or any other location. It is binding only until death. Even an LDS couple married in an LDS Sunday church building by their LDS bishop are married for this life only.

Mormon Temple Sealing Authority

Like all other callings in the church, LDS temple sealing officiators are unpaid. They do not seek or volunteer for their positions, but are called by priesthood authority through direct revelation from God. Individuals who accept the call are then ordained (given the sealing power) by having the hands of those in authority laid on their heads.

In addition to modern revelation, Mormons draw their beliefs about the power and authority to seal from Jesus’ statement to his disciple Peter: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18). This is godly relationships.

Religious Significance of Temple Marriage

It’s important to understand that in Mormon theology, marriage has a very definite purpose. Temple sealing doesn’t concern couples so much as it does families. Since families are considered the most important unit in creation, temple sealing is the crowning ordinance of the temple.

In the words of church leader Russell M. Nelson, temple marriage allows couples to “continue as spouses after death and receive the highest degree of celestial glory, or exaltation… Within the celestial glory are three levels. To obtain the highest of godly relationships, a husband and wife must be sealed for time and all eternity and keep their covenants made in a holy temple.”

To Latter-day Saints, there is no ordinance more important than that of a temple marriage. The ceremony itself is short, quiet, and simple. However, it carries immeasurable blessings for faithful LDS families.