Another post in the series about my relationship with John. You can find earlier entries here and here.
When John and I were courting, I prayed to know if he was the right spouse for me. I knew that I loved him like I’d never loved another, I knew that I was super-attracted to him, and I could think of nothing better than the possibility of spending forever with him.
A part of me really didn’t want to pray about whether or not to marry John. Because I knew if the answer from God was “no”, well, I’d probably go ahead and do it anyways because I was so head over heels in love.
(Note: I don’t think I’ve ever told this to John, at least I can’t remember if I ever have)
When I prayed about it I had many warm feelings. I felt sure that God wanted me to be happy and also that he blessed our union. However, there was one caveat to the response: I kept thinking of the choice that John made at age 18 to join the LDS church. He’d willingly disobeyed his parents and was completely disowned from them for his choice. Of course I, as a devout Mormon, felt that John had done right in choosing the church over his family. Yet as I prayed to know if I should marry John I realized that John had already demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice relationships for the sake of his ideals. And that scared me. I thought of John someday leaving the church and I acknowledged this as a very real possibility. Although there was nothing in John’s behavior or in his testimony that led me to think that he would leave the church someday, perhaps even then I was seeing this in our future.