Lesson 10 Charity

One of the greatest things that you can learn in marriage is to truly love your spouse.  Recently while studying “Drawing Heaving into Your Marriage,” by H Wallace Goddard PhD I had the opportunity to study about charity.  Charity is defined as the pure love of Christ.  That means that we attempt to love others as we know that our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ love us.  Imagine what that must feel like!  I bet you’re asking yourself, “What is the difference between love and charity?”.  Charity in my opinion is the ability to overlook and forgive others for their shortcomings and love them unconditionally.  Think about your relationship with spouse.  When you first got married, were there things that he or she did that annoyed you to the core?  Are those things still something that you deal with?  What is the difference between now and then?  The difference is that you have found a different way to love.  This doesn’t just come with time though.  You have to put in the work.  My wife and I have done this in different ways over the years.  One of the best ways that we have been able to have charity for one another is to pray for opportunities to show love for each other.  Those opportunities present themselves in a myriad of ways.  It could be from making dinner, getting up in the middle of the night with the kids, to something as simple as a hug.  I encourage you to pray for help to know how you can show charity to your spouse, and then act on the opportunities when they arise.  I promise that you won’t be disappointed!