Essay

A Full Life Before Marriage

If marriage and family are central to God’s plan, what should you be doing before marriage comes? Maybe you are dating and hoping to marry soon. Maybe you have been single longer than you expected. You may be divorced, widowed, or experiencing same-sex attraction while trying to live faithfully and wondering where you fit in a gospel that teaches so much about eternal family.

Those are important questions. One thing can help put this season of life in perspective: marriage is part of God’s eternal plan, but your life with Jesus Christ is already happening. You do not have to wait for marriage before you can grow, serve, build meaningful relationships, keep covenants, and find real joy. You can prepare seriously for marriage while also building a good life with Christ now.

The Family: A Proclamation to the World helps hold those truths together. You are already a beloved son or daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and destiny. The proclamation also teaches that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and central to His plan. Your current circumstances do not make either truth less important.

Your Covenants Are Already Part of Your Life

At the Waters of Mormon, Alma taught a group of people who wanted to be baptized. Before they entered that covenant, he explained what belonging to God would ask of them. They would be willing to “bear one another’s burdens,” “mourn with those that mourn,” “comfort those that stand in need of comfort,” and “stand as witnesses of God”.

Alma was describing a way of life. Baptism already gives you people to love, burdens to help carry, testimony to share, and work to do. None of that begins only after marriage.

If you are endowed, your temple covenants deepen that life with Christ. They teach you to obey God, sacrifice for His purposes, live the gospel, remain morally clean, and consecrate what He has given you to His work. Those qualities will certainly help you become a better husband or wife if marriage comes, but they matter now too. They are part of becoming the kind of disciple God is asking you to be today.

The Lord taught something similar to the early Saints when He told them not to wait for instructions about every good thing they could do. He wanted them to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause” and to act of their own free will because “the power is in them.”

That principle applies to this part of adulthood too. You can look at the life God has already given you and begin doing good with it.

You Can Strengthen Families Before You Have Your Own

Some of the opportunities to do that may already be around you. Your ward, extended family, neighborhood, and friendships are full of people you can strengthen.

You might notice the teenager who often seems left out. You can become a dependable aunt, uncle, teacher, ministering brother or sister, neighbor, or family friend. You can help a young family, serve in the temple, participate in missionary work, invite people into your home, teach a class carefully, use your professional skills to help someone, or simply become someone people know they can count on.

And as you serve, you change too. You learn to work with people whose personalities and needs are different from your own. You become more patient, dependable, generous, observant, and willing to make room for someone else. Those qualities bless people now, and they can also prepare you well for marriage and parenthood.

You Can Strengthen the Family Without Pretending Singleness Is the Ideal

Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught about this balance in “Why Marriage, Why Family.” He clearly taught the importance of marriage and family in God’s plan, while also acknowledging that the revealed ideal is not presently available to everyone.

He emphasized that every person has gifts and opportunities to contribute to God’s purposes. He also gave a reassuring promise: no faithful disciple is “predestined to receive less than all that the Father has for His children.”

That matters if you sincerely want marriage but cannot control when or whether the right opportunity comes. God knows the difference between a blessing you desire and circumstances you did not choose. He has not forgotten what He has promised His faithful children.

Build a Full Life and Keep Room for Marriage

There is another balance that can be easy to miss. Building a meaningful single life does not require deciding that marriage no longer matters.

Sheri Dew has spoken for years about living a full life of Church service, work, friendships, teaching, mentoring, and temple worship while still believing deeply in eternal marriage. In this Q&A, she gives practical counsel about remaining open to marriage rather than becoming so settled in independence that there is no room for another person:

Two Ways of Thinking About Singleness Can Make It Harder

One message young adults sometimes absorb is that real adulthood will begin once they get married. Another message goes the other direction: build exactly the life you want, protect your independence, and do not let marriage require too much change. That can sound appealing, especially when becoming independent has required years of effort.

The adversary can use either idea to pull you away from something good. A righteous desire for marriage can slowly turn into discouragement or resentment. Healthy competence can become self-protection that makes it harder to let another person into your life.

Christ offers a steadier way to live. Use this season well. Keep your covenants. Build strong relationships. Become more capable of giving and receiving love. And remain open to the marriage and family blessings God has taught you to seek.

What If My Circumstances Are More Complicated?

Alex Lindstrom offers a Latter-day Saint example. Alex is single and experiences same-sex attraction. In “Seeing Myself in the Family Proclamation,” he writes about wondering where he fit in a proclamation that speaks so strongly about marriage and family.

As he studied it, he began with its first teaching about identity: he is a son of God with a divine nature and destiny. That truth did not answer every question about his future, but it gave him a clear place to stand. He could keep covenants, worship in the temple, serve, build good relationships, sustain God’s teachings about marriage, and continue following Christ.

The same principle can help if you are divorced, widowed, or living through circumstances you did not choose. You do not need to have your entire future figured out before your life can have purpose. Heavenly Father knows your desires, your circumstances, and the difference between what you can choose and what you cannot.

Becket Cook: What If Christ Becomes Larger Than My Weakness?

Christian author Becket Cook experiences same-sex attraction and has chosen to live a single, celibate Christian life and says he does not miss out on anything through obedience and chastity. Watch Becket describe that perspective here:

His circumstances may be different from yours, but his perspective is useful. You can deeply want marriage without allowing its absence to become the main way you understand your life. You can date, pray, prepare, and stay open to marriage while also asking what Christ has already given you and how you can use it well.

Research Suggests Purpose Matters in Young Adulthood

Research offers an interesting parallel. A longitudinal study of more than 6,000 young adults examined what researchers called a “sense of mission”—the feeling that life has meaningful direction and that you have something worthwhile to contribute.

Young adults with a stronger sense of mission reported higher levels on several measures of well-being and were also more involved in volunteering. Because the study was observational, it cannot tell us that purpose caused those outcomes, but the pattern is still useful (read the study).

The gospel gives purpose an even deeper foundation. You do not have to invent your mission from nothing. Your covenants already connect you to Jesus Christ, to His people, and to work that matters.

A Few Questions Worth Thinking About

• Have I been thinking so much about the family I hope to have someday that I am overlooking people God has already placed in my life?
• What am I becoming now that could help me build a stronger marriage and family later?
• Am I building a meaningful life while still leaving real room for dating, marriage, and another person’s needs?
• Where could my covenants shape the way I use my time, abilities, home, or resources more fully?

What Can You Do This Week?

Ask Heavenly Father a practical question: Who have You already placed near me that I could strengthen? Then act on one reasonable impression. Call someone. Help a family. Take your ministering assignment more seriously. Invite someone over. Offer a skill you have.

Then do something concrete to prepare for marriage if that blessing is available to you. Go on a date. Ask someone to introduce you to people. Work on a financial, emotional, spiritual, or relationship habit that would help you become more prepared to share a life with another person.

If you are endowed, take this question to the temple. Think about what you have already covenanted to give God and what He has already placed in your hands. Ask how you can use more of your present life to bless His children without trying to control exactly when future blessings arrive.

As you follow Christ now, you are not moving away from the doctrine of eternal family. You are learning how to live the kind of life that prepares you for it. He can make this season deeply meaningful and joyful while continuing to prepare you for every righteous blessing Heavenly Father has promised.