Promises, Promises
He was not the man I needed to make my dreams come true. My dreams included being a very stong, righteous family, Active in the church. He said he could do that and we had very long discussions for the next few weeks about it. He would ask what kind of man I wanted and he kept telling me he could do that, he could be that. I kept trying to tell him that the man I wanted would already be that man but he kept insisting that it was not too late. The thing is, I started to believe him. I had this strong feeling inside that I could believe anything he told me. I was confused. I was afraid. I wanted this to be it, but… I had grown up in a very non-Mormon town where I had witnessed so many girls baptize their boyfriends, get married only to have their husbands stop going to church within a short time, leaving these girls stuck with these guys and their kids in limbo. I did not want to end up like that. I knew it, and God knew it.
He showed me a list. It was a list of goals he had made just before he met me. I don’t remember all the goals now but one was “to meet a nice girl” and another was, “start going to church.” That impressed me, then I still had this nagging voice inside me, telling me to believe him. I told several friends that I had this feeling that if he promised me he would lasso the moon, he would not stop until he did it. I was just learning about integrity at that point of my life but I recognized it in him. Then as I described in another post, I had a revelation. I saw darkness break into pieces and fall down around him and the sun came out and I felt peace like I had never known. I married this man and we began our journey as exactly the family I had always wanted.
In the beginning, I thought I was the more knowledgable one. I felt like I was the “righteous leader” of the home, but it did not take long at all before he made it clear to me, by his actions, that he was a worthy priesthood holder and was more than capable of leading my family through the fire into the Celestial kingdom. I even felt some resentment that he had more integrity than I at times. I felt safe and secure with him. We had a perfect family. I always had people in the wards we lived in tell me how much they admired my hubby. One Relief Society President told me as my hubby was the Elder’s Quorum President, that she could not do her job if it weren’t for my hubby because she knew that whatever he said he would do, she knew it would get done. She really counted on him with trust and reliability. She was not the only one. I had countless people tell me through the years how much integrity he had and what a hard worker he was. That was icing on the cake for me. I loved being the woman married to the most admired man. We both held many high level callings through out the years. Always presidents or members of the presidency. We both worked hard and took these callings seriously. We had family prayer morning and night…every morning and night plus at meals and special occasions. We went to church faithfully, not being able to leave our own ward for all the family things that so many members do. Hubby felt like he could not be gone every other week for every baby blessing or farewell, etc when he had made a commitment to God to do the callings we had been called to do. We had family home evening every week. If one could not make it for those occasional times, that person would know and take comfort that the family went on with it and it would be there again next week. We ate meals together every night, enjoyed each other’s company, and loved each other very much. I don’t know the definition of a perfect family if that is not it.
Our children were all born leaders. They always held leadership positions in school and church. One daughter figured out that she was not in a Young Women leadership for only 2 months in the 6 years of YW. We would have them conduct family home evenings, teach lessons, make refreshments, etc. We had family counsels and taught them how to lead a discussion and make decisions and delegate responsibility. They were all hard workers because of the work ethic hubby had instilled in them.
So, after 20 years of a perfect life, it was all ripped out from under me. I can’t help but ask myself, “How did I end up here?”
What did I do wrong?
