Learning to Love

I am majoring in Marriage, Family, and Human Development at BYU. But being the slightly prideful person I am, I have avoided taking any classes on marriage during my college career. Funny, huh, given the name of my major. I wanted to give others the impression that I was an ambitious, academic-oriented student--not just a girl looking for her so-called "Mrs degree"--and so I chose to take the classes offered in the major that focused on human development rather than marriage or parenting. But last semester I caved in and took a class called Forming Marital Relationships from Dean Busby. I am so glad I swallowed my pride, because that class was so amazing. And as a little plug for my major, it is a rigorous research-based major heavy in reading and writing. I hope that over time the stereotype of the MFHD major as a girl who doesn't care much about school or career plans and just wants to get through school with an easy major will subside.

Okay, so on to the real reason I'm writing this entry. I wanted to share with you something that Dr. Busby shared with me about love in marriage. He spent the last few lectures of the class just going over some things that he has learned over the years of his own marriage, including more religious lessons. He shared with us the experience he had a few years ago of almost seeing his wife die and then spending weeks and weeks with her in an ICU, and since then helping her regain her physical and mental abilities. It was heart-wrenching to hear how painful this experience has been for him, but it was also beautiful to hear how much he learned through it. It was especially heart-wrenching because he had referred to his wife in illustrating certain concepts throughout the whole semester, and we had never known this had happened.

One of the many things that he said during this lecture was that this experience has taught him that learning to love is learning to die beautifully. He repeated this phrase a few times and talked about why he felt this way. My initial reaction was that love isn't about dying, it's about living. Because of this, I have thought a lot since then about what he said, and the more I think about it, the more I agree with him. And here's why:

Learning to love a person is learning to love their whole person--their eternal being, not just their mortal person. Since one of the big hindrances of love is fear, the fear of aging and death and loss keeps us from loving fully. And so the more we are able to accept the fact that aging and death and loss is just a part of one's eternal journey, the more we are able to love a person without the burden of fear of loss.

Learning to love a person is learning to make sacrifices for them--letting parts of you die that hinder you from loving them completely. Like Lamoni's father said, we should be willing to "give away all [our] sins" to be able to love others more purely. This means we have to let the not-so-great parts of us die, including our "pet sins." And I think marriage takes a lot of other sacrifices as well, that take giving up things that aren't necessarily sins but just neutral things that aren't the best for your relationship.

Learning to love a person is learning to serve them all your life, even to the point that you wear out your body in doing so. It says in the scriptures that "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13). I think this could also apply for all the husbands and wives in the world who work so hard for their families that they wear their bodies out in doing so.

Learning to love a spouse is learning to grow old with them. I think the more experience we have with our spouses, the more we love them. And I think that's what growing old does for us. I think it's unfortunate that our culture is so fixated on youth, because there are so many great things about getting old, but since our culture focuses on fleating temporal things, we don't recognize, appreciate, or value them as much.

Learning to love is learning to die beautifully. And because of the Atonement, we can die beautifully with the assurance that we will be delivered from that death and raised up to glory. Learning to love is learning to have faith in the Atonement and the eternities, letting go of our selfishness and living our lives for others. It is losing our lives for the sake of another's. (Matt. 16:25) And in this way we will find the kind of love the whole world is searching and longing for.