A Difference of Religion

Shelle Edit:  H.K. is one of my favorite people and a long time blog friend.  Her blog is about her family and her life.  The post about her personal struggle with a recent loss is one of the first posts I remember crying over.  She connects when she writes.  She writes for solely herself.  I thank her so much for writing this post.  After you read her here, you should go and check out her own personal blog H.K. Weighs In.

When I first met my husband, we instantly clicked. Our first date didn’t have those awkward silent moments, where you wonder what you should talk about-we never ran out of things to say. We were constantly amazed at how many things we had in common, except for one thing; I was Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and he was a member of the
Pentecostal church.

However, we didn’t make the differences of our religion a prime focus on our relationship; instead we made a point of learning about each other’s beliefs and took turns going to each other’s churches on Sundays. And we continued that tradition even after we got married.

Some of our friends and family thought it was an unusual arrangement; there were a few who voiced their concern that I would leave the Mormon Church and my husband’s friends from his church voiced the same concern about him. It was an arrangement that worked for our relationship until I got pregnant.

I knew that continuing the arrangement of going to two churches that differed in their beliefs would be confusing for a child. We made it work when it was just the two of us, but would it work with our child?

I thought I had it all worked out and felt so proud that our relationship was strong despite the differences of our religious beliefs; would it continue to be strong if our child preferred one religion to another?

After many discussions, we came to the conclusion that we would continue with the arrangement even after our son was born. We wanted what was best for our child. We saw much good that came from each other’s religions and though we may have not agreed with some of the doctrines, in the end, we believed that what ever happened from our arrangement was meant to happen.

Several years into our marriage, I became very ill and it took me a few months to recover. When I became better, I was too weak to drive, so my husband decided that we would go to my church for awhile. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement- until my husband wanted to learn more about my church and asked the missionaries to teach him.

After several missionary discussions, my husband was converted to the Mormon church and a year later our family were sealed in the LDS temple (to understand more about LDS temple sealings go here)

I did not go into my marriage thinking that I would eventually convert my husband to my church nor did my husband. We loved each other very much and we knew that if we wanted peace and harmony in our marriage, we needed to make a more concerted effort to understand each other’s religious beliefs and most importantly, to respect them- even if we disagreed with some of the doctrine.

I’m not sure how our marriage would be if we were still practicing different religions. However, I’ve seen marriages still thrive even with different religious backgrounds and I’d like to believe that our marriage would have been one of them.

Do you think it's possible for relationships or marriages to be successful despite religious differences?  How would you handle it?

H.K.