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TheDiscipleMD

Many years ago I attended a church activity where the husbands had chosen a short video clip that best showed the circumstance of meeting and falling in love with their wife.  I chose a well-known scene out of Bambi where Thumper is ‘twitterpated’ by a comely bunny.  After watching all the clips we had to match the clip with the couple.  I must be transparent because everyone immediately guessed I was Thumper.  Almost all of us who have married were ‘twitterpated’ at one moment in time.  The key, of course, is to continue to be ‘twitterpated’ as the days turn to months and the months to years.   This can be difficult at times as trials and tribulation come not only to us individually, but as couples.  Age with its accompanying illness and challenges can also take the ‘twitterpated’ feelings out of our marriages.

Several years ago F. Burton Howard gave a conference address where he compared how his wife treated the silverware to how we should treat our marriages. I quote him:

“I noticed that the silverware never went to the many ward dinners she cooked, or never accompanied the many meals she made and sent to others who were sick or needy. It never went on picnics and never went camping. In fact it never went anywhere; and, as time went by, it didn’t even come to the table very often. Some of our friends were weighed in the balance, found wanting, and didn’t even know it. They got the stainless when they came to dinner… For years I thought she was just a little bit eccentric, and then one day I realized that she had known for a long time something that I was just beginning to understand. If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently. You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by.

Eternal marriage is just like that. We need to treat it just that way. I pray that we may see it for the priceless gift that it is…” (“Eternal Marriage”, GC, April 2003). What a wonderful thought!

I suspect that most people love the feeling of being ‘twitterpated.’  I know I do! All of us should learn how to keep our spouses ‘twitterpated.” Each of our marriages are unique, and what may be necessary to one couple or person may not be to another. I recall a conversation I had many years ago with a guy friend in high school.  One day in Earth Science class he asked me what I found most attractive for a girl to be wearing.  Perhaps it was my church upbringing but I told him that I found a girl in a nice dress to be most attractive.  He scoffed and replied, “Not me! Nothing looks better on a girl than a pair of jeans and a tee shirt.  Well, I still feel the same way, and I imagine that my friend does too.  But knowing such, you might imagine that my wife wears a dress as often as the occasion merits. It’s not all physical, of course; many of us can be ‘twitterpated’ by having an intellectual conversation with our spouses or a spiritual one. Often one can make the other ‘twitterpated’ by seeing to their emotional needs.

If we follow the council of Burton and take special care of our marriages,  we can keep those loving feelings we felt so strongly during the first bloom of our love. I believe, with proper care and attention, we not only can keep the ‘twitter’ in our ‘pated,’ but our love can become stronger and more intense as the days turn to months and the months to years. What a wonder this world would be if we all had a ‘Twitterpated Marriage.’