what makes our marriage work for us.

Photos from April 2013.

"Obviously the Lord has created us with different personalities, as well as differing degrees of energy, interest, health, talent, and opportunity. So long as we are committed to righteousness and living a life of faithful devotion, we should celebrate these divine differences, knowing they are a gift from God."

This quote comes from a talk given by Sister Patricia Holland in 1987, which you can find here. Although the talk addresses womanhood, sisterhood, and developing greater faith in Christ both individually and collectively, I like to think that this quote applies just as well to all relationships. Particularly marriage.

I had a conversation recently with a lady from church who asked me what it is, in my opinion, that makes a marriage work. I immediately thought about how Ben and I are so different. We like different types of music, we get enthusiastic over different things, we have different hobbies, we choose to spend our allowance on different things, and even our own personal idea of the "perfect vacation" differs.

With that being said, I think the word "different" gets a bad rep most of the time. I love that Ben and I are so different! When we drive together I get to hear music I haven't heard before, I'm exposed to new and fun genres of movies, our vacations range from relaxing weekends to going to sporting events. However, we're in sync when it comes down to the big and important things in life. The greatest thing that makes us similar though, and makes our marriage work, is our commitment to the gospel and our love for Christ, and it's something we work at every single day.

Sometimes it isn't necessarily convenient to take a few hours out of our week to do the things we need to do (or coordinate our crazy schedules!), but they're the most rewarding hours by far. An afternoon spent at the temple, or learning new gospel truths through scripture reading, taking turns saying prayers in the morning and at night, conversations about the Savior, listening to General Conference talks on Monday nights, Sundays spent serving where needed, and so on. There's a unity that grows and develops between the two of us when we do those things, and that's pretty invaluable.