personal progress virtue value experience #1

i recently completed the first value experience for virtue.

Virtue is a pattern of thought and behavior based on high moral standards. It includes chastity and purity. The power to create mortal life is an exalted power God has given His children. He has commanded that this power be used only between a man and a woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife. Study the meaning and importance of chastity and virtue by reading Moroni 9:9; Jacob 2:28; “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”; and the section on sexual purity in For the Strength of Youth. Also read Article of Faith number thirteen and Proverbs 31:10–31. In your journal write the promised blessings of being sexually clean and pure and your commitment to be chaste.

 so, i pulled out my study journal and got to work.

the cute little "virtue" sticker that you can barely see in the top of the picture is from here.

all of the scriptures and references that i read for this value experience reminded me of a talk from our last general conference.  it's elder david a. bednar's talk, we believe in being chaste. 

some of the passages i read really struck a chord with me.  first, in for the strenfth of youth: sexual purity, it says, "physical intimacy between husband and wife is beautiful and sacred."  so often i hear people say that sex is dirty and bad and that the church teaches us it is dirty and bad.  right here, we find the exact opposite.  while it can be used as a dirty and secular thing, the LDS church does not view it that way when it is used as the Lord has commanded.  elder bednar explains how the world views sexual intimacy when he says,

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a single, undeviating standard of sexual morality: intimate relations are proper only between a man and a woman in the marriage relationship prescribed in God’s plan. Such relations are not merely a curiosity to be explored, an appetite to be satisfied, or a type of recreation or entertainment to be pursued selfishly. They are not a conquest to be achieved or simply an act to be performed. Rather, they are in mortality one of the ultimate expressions of our divine nature and potential and a way of strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife.

another thing that stuck out to me is from the reference i was asked to read in proverbs 31, verse 11.

"The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her..."

i was curious about this particular verse and so i did a search using this reference and found a talk given in general conference by barbara b. smith entitled, a safe place for marriages and families.   of this passage of scripture, sister smith says,

"This memorable line discloses, first, that the husband has entrusted his heart to his wife, and second, that she safeguards it. They seem to understand an important truth, that every man and woman who covenant to establish a family must create a safe place for their love."

i of course believe that this goes both ways.  meaning the husband and the wife both have the responsibility to entrust their hearts to the other and each in turn has a sacred responsibility to safeguard their partner's heart.  to me this means that we fully give ourselves to our spouse and to no one, or to nothing else in any way.