The Garden of Love

            

            I love flower gardens, especially English gardens.  I don’t know why exactly, but they appeal to my senses.  I love to look at them, surround myself in the smells and delight in the feeling I get when I am in them. The best gardens are those that are planned, and planned meticulously.  Not only the types of flowers, but the location of the plants, what flowers will surround them, how the plants will interact, what type of soil and nutrients they will need, how the sun hits the certain spots, and the climate of the area are all considered when deciding the layout for a fabulous garden plot.

            A great gardener has a vision of what he wants the garden to look like in the future, and works to build it to meet his ideal.  It doesn’t just happen naturally.  A gardener must pore over gardening magazines and catalogs, usually during the winter months while the weather is cold and the plants are dormant.  The soil must be prepared, tested for nutrients and adjustments made to best accommodate the plants.  Irrigation plans and groundwork need to be established.  Seedlings are started in hothouses and transplanted to the area desired. 

            Some plants need to be divided, mulched, cut back, pruned, or winterized.   Some plants are more difficult to grow, and need more watch-care and nurturing.  Other plants are aggressive, and will take over the entire garden if left to follow nature’s course.   And of course, there are the weeds that choke, pests that invade, and predators that ravage the beauty of the garden.  These must be dealt with on a regular basis. 

            Gardens are a lot of work.  And even if a garden looks wonderful today, if ignored, neglected, or forgotten it will become an entangled, disordered, chaotic mass of botany.  To have a continuously breathtaking garden one must be consistently attentive and vigilantly channel efforts on maintenance.

            A marriage is a garden of love, and represents our relationship with our spouse.  It takes a lot of work.  It takes planning and vision.   It takes study and humility to continuously improve our relationship.   It takes time and a desire to stay connected.  And we must continuously pull the weeds of selfishness, pride, and subdue the pests of stubbornness, ego and temper.

            We each are the gardeners of our personal patch.  God set the standards for marriage, but we each need to individually make the choice to beautify our own plot of ground.  We must choose to nurture, cultivate and produce the pleasant blooms of fidelity, kindness, charity and thoughtfulness.  We personally choose to pull the noxious weeds of pride, anger, and contempt, while exterminating the pests of selfishness and irritation.

            We choose to create the kind of relationship we desire.  We create it with every word, every text, every wink, every good morning, every act of service, and every can’t-wait-to-see-you–after-work.  If we are always creating then we will always have a loving, caring relationship.

            Every day, as gardeners in our marriage garden, we decide anew whether to create something beautiful, or let things fall into disrepair.  Every day, every hour we decide.  Most of us want the prize without paying the price.  We want to have a close loving marriage, but we are not willing to put forth the effort necessary to produce it.  . . .

            “A good marriage is not about skills.  It is about character.  Consider your thoughts, feelings, and actions the measure of your character—and the key to a godly relationship.  . . .

       It takes strength of character to see errors in a partner’s grammar or perceptions, and yet resist the temptation to correct needlessly.  It takes godly goodness to see weakness and mistakes in our partners, and yet resist the temptation to smirk.  It takes heavenly humility to be proven right and yet to meekly acknowledge that we all make mistakes.  It takes divine grace to discard or limit the hobbies that prevent us from helping around the house.”                                        -- H. Wallace Goddard

Essence Encounter:

            Marriage requires that we do more than tolerate our spouse’s idiosyncrasies and weaknesses.  We need to create the kind of marriage relationship that we want.  Do you laugh together?  Do you flirt with your spouse?  Do you take strolls, and reminisce about good times?  Reminiscing is a powerful bonding activity.  Do you try new things or activities together?  Intentional newness keeps things from falling into the ruts of mundaneness.  You don’t have to do these particular things, but are you building your relationship, or has it grown stale?  Are you growing together or apart?

            Take some time this week to think about what you can do to create the kind of relationship you desire.  It may take some planning and thoughtful self-examination, but with this vision in your mind, you can choose to do something towards creating a better relationship with your spouse.

            And don’t forget to pray--President Spencer W. Kimball said, “Don’t just pray to marry the one you love. Instead, pray to love the one you marry.”

             You can do this.  Like planting a garden, it will take time and effort.  It may take years to see your dreams fulfilled, but keep creating and you will find joy along the way.  You can make a difference between an infested mass of entangled, overgrown, greenery, and a wonderful breath-taking garden, that will be a delight to walk through regularly.