How Can WE Affect Change?

Recently I had a conversation with my husband about a very important quote from President Thomas S. Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He said:

“He who gives money gives much; he who gives time gives more; but he who gives of himself gives all" (President Thomas S. Monson (2012). Christmas is Love Broadcast. https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/christmas-devotional/2012/12/christmas-is-love?lang=eng).

I absolutely love this quote. How often do we throw money at a problem or time at a problem in order to solve it? When we give of ourselves, however, we are giving our most valuable resource, we give our efforts, our caring, and our understanding, as well as money and time if necessary.

In my own life, I've found that those who end up getting a divorce are often those who don't open up to their spouses in their marriage. Whether it be from pent up feelings of anger or loneliness, or even resentment, harboring feelings against your spouse just isn't the point of a healthy marriage. Our spouse should be our teammate. We should be fighting alongside them, not against them.

This week in our Marriage class, we learned about divorce and the general destruction of the family. I found this topic very enlightening. Though we are plenty aware as to how the family is being targeted, it seems that we are unaware of the degree that it is being destroyed. Within a society of higher rates of cohabitation, birth outside of wedlock, and even gay marriages, the definition of marriage seems to be ever-changing. The institution itself is crumbling as more and more people decide against it with every passing moment.

The question arises; how can we support the institution of marriage? Well, we give of ourselves. We practice what we preach, and we put ourselves at the forefront of the battle attacking marriage. We become advocates of the institution of marriage. We recruit those who can become transitional characters for saving marriage. Carlfred Broderick spoke of transitional characters in his book about Marriage and the Family. He said:

“A transitional character is one who, in a single generation, changes the entire course of a lineage... They break the mold... Their contribution to humanity is to filter the destructiveness out of their own lineage so that the generations downstream will have a supportive foundation upon which to build productive lives”
(p. 18, Carlfred Broderick (1992). Marriage and the Family. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall).

If we can teach people how marriage can be a foundation to build productive lives, we can save marriages around the world, and even save the view of marriage in its entirety. By giving of ourselves, and our experiences with the institution of marriage, we can affect change in the world and become transitional characters for society, and for our own families if need be.

What then, can a transitional character do to affect change? They can rise above the status quo, and declare their own personal truth. They can break the boundaries that have been set up by the people before them to protect what they believe in. More importantly, they stand up for what they believe in without backing down at the first sign of difficulty. Let us rise up and become great transitional characters in this generation against marriage.