Another marriage thought

sorry for all these marriage stuff, but taking marriage prep and having to read talk after talk on marriage doesn't help! And it doesn't help that I read into the talks and analyze them. XD

I am getting more and more an impression of what a covenant marriage is. It is not, as I previously thought, just a contract. It is a covenant between God, man, and woman. The relationship to God was not known to me before. I knew He was in it, but I did not realize that because God is in that celestial marriage it means that everything a couple does has to include God. It is literally like having two companions, your wife/husband, and God. When we think about where we should live, what we should do, what job we should pick, how to arrange finances, to continue schooling, and to raise kids, we don't just consult our wife/husband, we ask God what He thinks about it. To enter into a temple marriage, is to enter into the highest and most sacred relationship, because you are now, for the first time, in a COMPLETE relationship to another human being, and to God. Your baptismal covenants move you toward that, but the crowning endowments, a Godly (not just enjoyable, or fun, or good, or pleasurable) marriage is a complete sacrifice of self to God and your partner. When you violate temple marriage covenants, you cheat on your spouse, and you cheat on God. I'm not talking about just sinning and asking forgiveness. Its having given yourself to God, and then running away.

Thinking about the relationship of the Jesus to the Groom, or to the Church, you see how Jesus gave EVERYTHING He had to the groom. His Atonement was infinite and ultimately complete. He did not hold back anything.

Adam and Eve were married in the Garden of Eden. They would have been married forever, but death came into the picture and would have torn that marriage apart had God not married them for time and eternity sealing Adam and Eve to each other, and then sealing them both to Himself.

So we see that the very definition of marriage is sacred. And even more so, a temple marriage is sacred.

The most likely way a marriage will succeed is if it based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel gives it strength and foundation. Christ and the Atonement gives marriage a power that will outlast everything, bonding a couple together stronger than ANY force on Earth (Jeffrey R. Holland "However Long and Hard the Road"). The power and the priesthood makes sure of that. However, our own keeping of the covenants is what will determine the quality of the marriage. You need the covenants, and the priesthood together to cement it.

Anyway, I think I actually wrote something other than what I was trying to say, and that I've written so much I think I'll stop now. haha