Consecrated in Marriage

week 9

Gilbert, AZ Temple Sealing Room 

Within my religion, we make sacred promises to God within the walls of our holy temples. We believe these promises to God allow us to invite the power of God within our lives. This power enables and ennobles us to become like God, our Father in Heaven. When I was married in the temple, I made promises to God during that religious ceremony along with promises made to my husband.

All these years later, I am just now coming to understand those promises – the action that is required and the blessings that are mine when I put the actions into my life. When I considered the concept of consecration, I always thought of it in terms of my relationship with deity. I have spent my life working on my relationship with God – because that is how relationships thrive. I work at putting my all into that relationship. But I am realizing that my beliefs in Marriage, The Plan of Salvation, and Temple Worship are all intertwined. They are the apex. If they are all connected, then how do I apply the promises I make to God in the temple, to my marriage relationship? Am I consecrating myself to my marriage? This may seem difficult to apply a concept that we view in strictly religious terms to an endeavor within our human (and often imperfect) experience. So, let me use some terms related to consecration to make accessible:

Devote to a purpose with or as if with deep solemnity or dedication

Set apart for a special (often higher end)

Imply compelling motives and attachment to an objective

Solemn and exclusive devotion to a sacred or serious purpose

Investment with a solemn or sacred quality

Imply intrinsic sanctity

Have I devoted myself with purpose, solemnity and dedication? Have I set apart myself and my marriage relationship for a special and higher end? What are my compelling motives and attachments to my marriage? Am I offering exclusive devotion to my relationship with my husband, and do I see the entirety of that relationship as sacred? Am I investing time to this relationship and viewing that investment as sacred – like I would the time I set aside for worshipping God? Do I view my marriage and then treat that relationship differently because of its intrinsic sanctity?

Viewing my efforts within my (very good, and fulfilling) marriage has given me a chance to ask if I’m really giving it my all – am I consecrating myself to this relationship? I wonder if I have fallen into the pattern of behavior described by Brigham Young, when he talked of the quality of giving and consecration that was being offered by early Latter-Day Saints:

“Some were disposed to do right with their surplus property, and once in a while you would find a man who had a cow which he considered surplus, but generally she was of the class that would kick a person's hat off, or eyes out, or the wolves had eaten off her teats. You would once in a while find a man who had a horse that he considered surplus, but at the same time he had the ringbone, was broken-winded, spavined in both legs, had the pole evil at one end of the neck and a fistula at the other, and both knees sprung.”

I think I have all too often found myself holding back from giving everything. Maybe it has to do with the pedestrian nature of our daily sacrifices in marriage. The tedium of the day-in-day-out routine has made it more difficult to see the sacred nature of this type of consecration. But Goddard has said, “As God would have it, our whole soul offerings are likely to bless our partners even as they refine us.” And the very nature of these small moments of consecration amount to something bigger, “[We] have been called on to make a thousand sacrifices that felt earth-shaking.” 

This expansion in my understanding is impacting my daily offerings – not just to my Heavenly Father, but to my husband (and by extension our family). When I think of the altar upon which I place my all, I don’t just see the face of my Savior, but I will see the face the one I call beloved – my partner, my spouse.