Dear Family
I thought it was time I started to be responsible for getting out the weekly No Empty Chairs to each of you again. I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity to be a father and a husband. To have been blessed enough to be both a husband and a father, I am truly grateful to my Father in Heaven for the Opportunity to be both. I am also very aware that being happy in a spousal relationship isn't something that happens by chance. Every day there is give and take. Choices to be selfish and selfless are also something we face daily. I wished I made better choices when I am faced with such things. As I live my life I am reminded often from my own experiences and from the wonderful examples of selfless love all around me. I have been blessed with wonderful parents that have often shown me how to put off that old demon selfishness for a better ideal. I have added a small piece of advice from Elder Henry B. Eyring on how to help be the better father, mother and spouse we all should be striving to be!
I love you all so much!
DaD
From my office window I see brides and grooms every day having their pictures taken among beautiful flowers and shooting fountains. The groom often carries his bride in his arms, at least for a few staggering steps, while the photographer shoots wedding pictures. Every time I see that, I think of couples I have known who in time—sometimes in a very short time after their wedding day—had to carry each other in other ways when life became hard.
Jobs can be lost. Children can be born with great challenges. Illness can come. And then, habits of having done unto others as we would have them do unto us—when it was easier—will make us heroes and heroines in those trying times when it takes more than we thought we had in us.
We owe our families the kind of relationship we can take into the presence of God. We must try not to give offense or take offense. We can determine to forgive quickly and fully. We can try to seek the happiness of others above our own. We can be kind in our speech. As we try to do all these things, we will invite the Holy Ghost into our families and into our lives.
