Charity And Marriage

All my life I have heard the expression, “charity begins at home.” What does this really mean?   I love how Marvin J. Ashton explains charity in the home.  He says, “Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weakness, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down.”  Wow! Seems simple enough doesn’t it?  As we have been learning over the past 10 weeks in this marriage course, (as if we didn’t already know), marriage comes with differences, weaknesses, and irritations.  Heavenly Father planned it that way. Marriage is not just to have companionship forever or to populate the world.  God planned for marriage so that we would learn to become like him. Marriage is God’s finishing school. If we are to become like him, we need to develop charity – which is the pure love of Christ. 

Are we able to really love our spouse as Christ does with all their faults, weakness, irritations, and differences?  I read this statement in Goddard's book and it made me think – “When we see our partners as Christ does, we love them.  His grace is sufficient to turn our weakness in to strength and love is a choice including the choice to see and celebrate the good in our partners.”

Think about how much Jesus Christ loves us.  He offered himself as a sacrifice for us so that we could repent, be forgiven, become clean and live with our Heavenly Father again.  He took upon him our sins and our burdens and went through all the pains and sufferings that we would endure so that He would know how to succor us.  Are we willing as partners to show that kind of charity toward each other?  Are we willing to sacrifice for our partner on a daily basis, if needed?  Are we willing to accept our partners for who they are and not want to change them? Are we willing to fix ourselves and not others and forget our pride and be willing to humble ourselves and recognize our own weaknesses? Can we appreciate our partner’s strengths and good qualities? Are we willing to forgive their shortcomings and realize that they are not perfect as we are not perfect?  Every relationship comes with unsolvable differences. Are we willing to put off criticism and contempt and instead show appreciation and love? Are we willing to speak only of the good that we know about our partner and lift them up rather than bring them down? Can we choose compassion, understanding and patience instead of nit-picking, fault finding and criticism? I think that this is what charity looks like in a marriage. Christ taught us how to love.   He taught us how to be charitable.  Marriage is the place that we practice and perfect this teaching. Charity begins at home.

   Ashton, M. J., (1992, May). The tongue can be a sharp sword. Ensign, pg. 19.     

Goddard, H. W., Drawing heaven into your marriage, (2009),  Chapter 7. Cedar Hills, UT: 

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