True Friends

What is it that you think of when you hear the phrase "Best Friends" or "True Friends?" Do you think of a high school buddy or "bestie?" Do you think of a college roomate? Do you think of a long-time neighbor? Do you ever think directly of your spouse? 

Sadly, many don't. Our spouse is our lover, our companion, our help-mate, but are they our friend? The answer is most certainly.

There are two main aspects of a marriage relationship, love and friendship. I separate these two even though many would say they are the same. The fact is both are equally important in the marriage relationship, neither trumping the other. With both of them at full power marriage is bliss, it is strong and satisfying for both despite any circumstances. With either or both of these failing, marriage limps, even drags along until it can go on no longer. So then, what is the difference between the two?

Love hightens the joys of life. The word ecstacy is used so often in the context of love. Ecstacy refers to an amplified version of emotion, happy emotion. When we are happy and getting along and life is good, love toward one another is felt at such a strong level. Love fuels the passion in marriage. Love is the feeling you get when you see your spouse look in the mirror as they get ready for the day and you can't take your eyes off them. Love leads to romance and romantic outings. Love leads to late nights and travelling great distances to be with one another even for a moment. Love is when your hearts skips a beat when your spouse grabs your hand, or walks into the room. Love is beautiful. Love is essential. 

Friendship is equally as important as love, but sadly is not given the publicity that love is so frequenttly given. It seems love is always in the spotlight; in films, books, songs, and stories. Less revealed is the friendship side of marriage. Friendship is loyalty. If love is the icing and filing then friendship is the cake. A true friend is the side of you that comes out when your spouse needs to talk, when they are stressed and need a hug. True means constant, consistent, steadfast, honest, truthful, and ideal. What kind of spouse would one be without these qualities? Friendship is what pulls a couple through a difficult trial, particularly those that are between the couple. When one in the couple is offended, annoyed, or hurt, love typically is harder to feel, but the friendship that is so constant and unwavering is what gets us through that detour and back to the main road where love can take over once again. Friendship is the willingness to defend and support your spouse when their back is against the wall or in any cicumstance. Best friends are forever. Friendship always forgives and is understanding. Friendship take the person with all the defects. The Savior said that, "Ye are my friends...I have called you friends." (John 15:14-15) What greater love is their than true friendship? Let us not forget the power of friendship in our marriages, especially at such a time as now, when we need strong marriages and families in society more than ever.

Fighting the Norms

"...a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."
-Thomas Paine, Common Sense

One of the greatest concerns of today and the future is the realization that the younger generation is raised in a world where socialism, immorality, and atheism are the norms. The world they will experience is one that will tell them that self is more important that others, more important than society. It is a version of the world that most of us strive to fight against, because it is foreign to us, we know of its being evil. The younger generation will grow up with this being the norm, they will be desensitized to it. This creates more room for decline, and more room for evil growth. We must rally together and cry as one, and never cease crying for the cause of righteousness and morality. This tumult must never be ceased, for the sake of all humanity.

Liberty is Earned

"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
• Edmund burke-Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791).

"For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest..."
- Thomas Paine, Common Sense

We, the people, are responsible for our having freedom and liberty or going without. If we can control our own actions, without the need of a government stepping in, we can be free. Only those who can live being accountable to a higher Power and Being with or without an earthly power there to watch over us can be truly free. Successful society is based on eternal principles, principles that have proven themselves over time. Principles that not coincidentally coincide with principles found in religious views and moral circles. If a people can hold to those principles without needing a government to step in to force them, they can truly be free. More laws are not the answer. Evil must be rooted out from the inside, and then the outward actions can naturally turn good. Less self gratification breeds more liberty.