Harperly Everly After

God knows that what we obtain too easily we esteem too lightly. In His own words,  " All those who will not  endure  chastening, but deny me, cannot be sanctified"  (D&C  101:5). To become heavenly, we must endure earthly challenges-including the unexpected ones in marriage.   When Jesus visited America, He told the people that he no longer accepted  their sacrifices and  burnt offerings. He  wanted  a new kind  of  sacrifice. ''And ye  shall offer  for a  sacrifice unto me a  broken heart  and a  contrite  spirit  "  (3 Nephi 9:20, emphasis added).                                                                                             ...

When I was little, my younger brother made me SO MAD!  He was 3 years younger than I was, and he knew just how to push every single one of my buttons.  To be fair, I pushed every single one of his as well, we argued, we fought over the T.V.,  we were constantly tattle-taling on each other to our mom.  I remember my mom would constantly tell me "You better learn how to get along with your brother.  One day you're going to have a husband who makes you mad too, and you can't go tattling on him to me..." In the book Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage , H. Wallace Goddard talks a little bit about the qualities we learn as children that maybe aren't so innocent.  Think back to your younger days and see if you remember doing any of the following with a sibling, cousin, or close friend... Putting your own needs first. "Go for the biggest piece of cake" Defending yourself. "Don't show weakness. Return fire for fire." View others as the g...

My covenant marriage: November 7, 2009 Newport Beach Temple I remember a conversation I had when I was 19 with my serious boyfriend at the time.  We had been dating for almost a year and a half, he was in the military and he wanted to seriously talk about marriage.  My struggle at the time was the fact that I loved him with all my heart, however, he was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  There was a war waging in my heart.  I desperately wanted to be married in the temple, to have a "covenant marriage", yet my high school sweetheart had no interest in joining the church.  He could not understand why a temple marriage meant so much to me, and though I tried my best to explain it to him, I'm sure the 20 year old version of me did not do the best job in explaining.  If I could go back and whisper the right words in my ear, I'd include some of the following... ⤐It's important to me .  I've s...

My son was cuddling with me on my lap about a year ago.  He was 5 years old and had just gotten home from preschool.  We were talking and he told me he wanted to marry me someday.  My heart melted.  I told him "Awe, honey, you can't marry me, I'm already married to daddy!"  While he didn't like that answer, he told me a minute later, "I'm gonna marry a boy, mommy!"  When I asked him why he said that, he told me "Cause my heart told me so."  I brushed it off as "Well, daddy married a girl, and then we had YOU!"  and changed the topic as I feel its not an appropriate age to discuss anything for or against the topic. Now in all probability, he probably just wants to have fun with his friends all day, every day, for the rest of his life, and he thinks, I know, I'll marry my friends (who are boys) and we can have fun all day long, forever!  But what would happen if he brought that statement to his teacher at school?  He might...

Once upon a time...  I was young and head over heels in love.  I had the fairy tale wedding, I had the cute step-son that I adored, and I got butterflies in my stomach every day that I woke up next to my handsome husband.  And then I didn't.  My world came crashing down around me in a tumbling of lies, deceit, infidelity (both emotional and physical), confusion, and abandonment.  I did every possible thing I could think of to slow down that oncoming train of change, but nothing that I did had the power to slow down that bulldozing force of destruction.  The hours I spent on my knees in prayer, the articles I pulled up on how to save a marriage, the desperate pleas I made to him, the marriage counseling that he wouldn't attend, nothing made a difference.  I learned that sometimes, despite our best intentions, we cannot have any power over another persons actions.  For the better, or for the worse. My ex-husband has now been divorced two mor...