Fighting Entropy

I'm a word nerd. There's just something about certain words that I find fascinating. I remember when I was a teenager, I heard someone use the word "hubris" to describe an actor, and for months, I tried to use that word as often as possible. I have thesaurus.com bookmarked.

What can I say? I. Love. Words.

So, you can imagine how excited I was when not one, but two of my classes this week used the word "entropy" to describe marriage and family relationships.

dictionary.com

What in the world does a measure of thermodynamic energy have to do with relationships? Some clues can be found in the "related words" at the bottom of the picture above. In a 1976 devotional, President Spencer W. Kimball said that "many people have permitted their marriages to grow stale and weak and cheap...these people would do well to reevaluate, to renew their courting, to express their affection, to acknowledge kindnesses, and to increase their consideration so their marriage again can become beautiful, sweet, and growing."

I began to wonder if I had unwittingly let my marriage slip into entropy. I recently started working after 25 years of being a stay-at-home mom, and I have a full load of college classes as I work toward my degree. This, combined with all that it takes to raise six children, has stretched my energy to a level I have scarcely before felt. It's no wonder that all of my relationships are suffering. Unfortunately, my marital relationship is included. I'm exhausted, and I can't very well let my children fend for themselves, right? In all of my relationship responsibilities, I am realizing that I have put my husband last.

Thankfully, he was willing to sit down with me this week so that we could talk about my epiphany. Together, we made a list of three things that we could do to bring our relationship back from its entropic state. First, we need a regular date night. There has to be ONE NIGHT in the week where we can put aside our other responsibilities and focus on us. Just us. No kids, no homework, no job. Just us. We decided that would be Friday night. Second, we need to show more interest in each other's daily activities. Somehow, through all the years, we have stopped asking each other the question "how was your day?". It seems like a simple thing, yet it has disappeared as we turn our focus inward. Third, and very most importantly, we need to kneel down together for couples' prayer each day. I say my personal prayers, but since we go to bed at different times, we have stopped saying nightly prayers together. This is something that will help knit our spirits and our hearts together.

Can entropy be reversed? I don't know enough about thermodynamics to answer that question literally, but I do believe that figurative entropy is absolutely reversible. And we're going to prove it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready for my date.