Dating...here we go again and again and again...

I have signed up again on LDSsingles...kind of funny, but kind of my way of showing Heavenly Father that I'm willing and open to whatever opportunities He gives me. Online dating is not my favorite way of finding a spouse (that's what happened before...and look how that turned out) that's why it's been about 2 years since I've done it.  But here we go.  What's the worst that could happen?  Maybe I shouldn't ask that!

These are some excerpts from a talk that I love and has kept me knowing what it is I need to do as I date. It is called, "How Do I Love Thee?" By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. I highly recommend it!  Here is the link http://www.lds.org/new-era/2003/10/how-do-i-love-thee?lang=eng&query=jeffrey+r+holland+"how+do+I+love+thee"

Enjoy!

There are many qualities you will want to look for in a friend or a serious date—to say nothing of a spouse and eternal companion—but surely among the first and most basic of those qualities will be those of care and sensitivity toward others, a minimum of self-centeredness that allows compassion and courtesy to be evident.

I suppose no one is as handsome or as beautiful as he or she wishes, or as brilliant in school or as witty in speech or as wealthy as we would like, but in a world of varied talents and fortunes that we can’t always command, I think that makes even more attractive the qualities we can command—such qualities as thoughtfulness, patience, a kind word, and true delight in the accomplishment of another. These cost us nothing, and they can mean everything to the one who receives them.

In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, who is constantly critical of you, who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without having the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy. In this person’s care you deserve to feel physically safe and emotionally secure.

If you are just going for pizza or to play a set of tennis, go with anyone who will provide good, clean fun. But if you are serious, or planning to be serious, please find someone who brings out the best in you and is not envious of your success. Find someone who suffers when you suffer and who finds his or her happiness in your own.

Endure to the End

Third and last, the prophets tell us that true love “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (Moro. 7:45). Once again that is ultimately a description of Christ’s love—He is the great example of One who bore and believed and hoped and endured. We are invited to do the same in our courtship and in our marriage to the best of our ability. Bear up and be strong. Be hopeful and believing. Some things in life we have little or no control over. These have to be endured. These are not things anyone wants in life, but sometimes they come. And when they come, we have to bear them; we have to believe; we have to hope for an end to such sorrows and difficulty; we have to endure until things come right in the end.

In a final command to all His disciples for all time, He said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34; emphasis added). Of course such Christlike staying power requires more than any of us really have. It requires something more, an endowment from heaven. Remember Mormon’s promise: that such love—the love we each yearn for and cling to—is “bestowed” upon “true followers of Christ.”

This next quote has literally saved my life throughout the course of my dating. I have been able to see right from wrong and truth from error as I have applied this quote, because I have been able to see what is right in a relationship and what isn’t.  I have had to cling to the truth to help me see what I really really want in my marriage and it has saved me from big mistakes and unknown and unhealthy paths.

I’m grateful to Elder Holland for being so bold, when sometimes I didn’t want to see it or hear it, but I knew that he was right.  Because of this quote I was able to be safe in a relationship that could have changed everything in my life and would have made it a very unhappy ending.  I’m grateful that though it’s hard advice to follow when you’re “in love” if you follow it, your relationships of “love” will be deeper and bonded in the right way, with the Savior at the helm of your relationship. It’s so true and so essential.

Do you want capability, safety, and security in dating and romance, in married life and eternity? Be a true disciple of Jesus. Be a genuine, committed, word-and-deed Latter-day Saint. Believe that your faith has everything to do with your romance, because it does. You separate dating from discipleship at your peril. Jesus Christ, the Light of the World, is the only lamp by which you can successfully see the path of love and happiness. How should I love thee? As He does, for that way “never faileth.”