On this, the day of love.

My brother's family is in town from Vegas so we all had dinner at my Aunt Alayne's house tonight. Not only was the food yummy and the company delightful, we also had a lovely spiritual moment talking about love. We shared scriptures and thoughts about the need to put our thoughts, energy and time into our relationships. To truly know someone and be able to recognize and meet their needs, you have to spend time learning of them, serving them and often this requires self-sacrifice. This is true of our relationships with our spouses, children, siblings, parents and the Lord. Only when we are putting forth the effort to cultivate and strengthen our bonds of love will we feel connected.

My Uncle Don spoke of the transition as the last of their 6 children is about to leave on his mission. He and my Aunt Alayne are very busy with church responsibilities and work and other things. They had kind of let go of doing a Family Night since it's usually just the two of them. In an effort to reconnect with each other, they have started having a weekly Family Home Evening and going on a Saturday morning hike together. These two moments together, in a week of otherwise separate lives, have reconnected them and given a surge to their relationship.

Brad talked about how busy our lives have become, with his 2 jobs and my 3. We are often passing just long enough to hand off the kids and wave goodbye. Our time together has decreased exponentially, thus making it increasingly important that we maximize the time we do have. Our Saturday night date consisted of sitting at Subway so he could have dinner and I could finish paperwork. We held hands walking into Kinko's to make copies that I needed. We flirted at the store while finishing another errand. He could have stayed home with the boys while I got my things done but it was SO worth the $12 we paid our babysitter so that we could spend time reconnecting. I have such a testimony of weekly dates for couples. If you aren't doing it, shame on you!

Similarly, if we aren't spending time each day trying to strengthen our relationship with our Savior, we will quickly start to feel a disconnect. If we aren't feeling His love, we need to first check with ourselves to see what we can change. What action can we take to draw nearer to Him? He loved us first. He is always there, waiting for us to seek Him.

This life is certainly not for coasters. Cruise control does not apply. There is always prioritizing and work to be done. It's like my friend Jodi says about the law of averages, the more good stuff you put out there, the higher your chances of getting good things back!