Teach Truth

I was recently at a Relief Society meeting about standing in holy places, and specifically about making where you are standing a holy place. The couple doing the main presentation was great. At one point while she was speaking he brought all five of their children into the room and they played chase around the room while she kept talking. Excellent object lesson. Because some times it can be really hard, for one reason or another, to make where you are standing feel as holy as the temple.

After the meeting I was talking with the sister and she actually apologized to me for talking about children so much. Which really caught me off guard. She was worried she might have offended me because I don't have children. She doesn't even know about our struggles. I assured her that I was not offended in the slightest. Family, children, marriage, all of that is truth. It actually offends me more when I can tell someone is leaving things out because they don't want to offend me.

Two months ago my mother said they had a lesson in Relief Society about eternal marriage where the teacher did not talk about marriage at all because she did not want to offend the single, divorced, or widowed sisters in the ward. How do you teach a lesson about eternal marriage without talking about marriage? I have no idea.

Eternal marriage is an eternal truth. Children are an eternal truth. We are not living in the celestial world currently and so there are all kinds of situations we may find ourselves in. But the truth is still the truth. And we should never shy away from teaching truth.

Oh yes. That will work.

Don't get me wrong--I love my ward. I love being in a family ward. I love the diversity of experience and age and education.

However.

I don't really love the well-meaning but slightly stupid things people say sometimes. There are many people who say well-meaning and non-stupid things, but the few who say things that are actually stupid are the ones who drive me batty. Yesterday one of them metaphorically cornered me after church. She and her husband are parents of several boys of varied ages. The older ones aren't married yet and they're getting worried, so she told me of her husband's solution: get all the single people together, line them up facing each other, arrange them by height and age, and then just pair them off.

Yes.

While my brain was thinking "good heavens!" my face was friendly and amused and I laughed as I engaged in that particular conversation. I admit I HAVE had moments when I appreciate the idea of arranged marriages, but know that it's no way to "solve the singles problem". Just marrying someone the same age and taller than me won't mean I'll be happy or that it's right. I know a lot of tall guys around my age, and there is at least one you couldn't PAY me to marry. This is the 21st Century! I am not considered property and I am NOT a problem to be solved. I suppose some people still don't see that a single person can be pretty darn happy with her life as it is.

Still, I can't help smiling because she seemed so concerned for my welfare. Bless her for that!